An Angel of the Night
by MelancholyEcho
Summary: A vampire saves a girl and leaves her wondering if she imagined him.
1. The Angel Appears

Gabriel sat atop the light post breathing the cold night air thinking of the coming day and his much needed slumber. It seemed like ages since he had last felt the cold thoughtlessness of death take over his days. He knew however, that his condition required the fuel of human blood to drive him into a peaceful rest. So, he found a high vantage point on the empty suburban street to begin his nocturnal hunt.

He ran long fingers through is mane of white blond curls as he waited for unsuspecting, and probably intoxicated, prey to stumble down the street. "This is going to take awhile," he thought, rolling his shoulders to relieve the sting from the cold as he adjusted his black leather coat. Gabriel unfolded his long jean clad legs from under him and let them dangle from the safe haven that was his lamp post perch.

"I need to get some food in this damned stomach of mine..." _no pun intended_, he mumbled to himself absently.

When he began to think that he may need to find a street closer to the busier part of town to look for people making their way home, he heard humans coming down the foggy neighborhood street. His entire countenance shifted from its casualness to the still and strained alertness of a hunter. He glanced down when they stopped under the light of the lamp he was on. He nearly counted the seconds as he made quick decisions as to which he would drink from and how he would take the other two out to keep them from interfering with his feed.

"You see that girl coming down the road Tom?" asked the tallest one of the three men that stopped under Gabriel's current hunting place, the observation kept Gabriel from lunging. If it were true that the human had noticed another person on the street than that would be another human Gabriel would have to dispose of to keep from being seen. So, he waited.

"Yes I see her you idiot, what about it?" asked the skinny one who was obviously Tom.

"Yes, well, she looks like something that would be clenching that hunger I was tellin' you 'bout back at Tooley's." said the tall one.

"Greg, you can't honestly say what I think your sayin' are you?" slurred Tom sounding more eager than concerned.

"Yea, just you and Steve give me a hand will ya?" Greg asked looking at both Tom and Steve.

"If we get a share!" Steve said dumbly, Greg nodded in agreement and all of them glanced toward the woman they were talking about.

_What are these ill bred imbeciles going to do?_ Gabriel thought to himself, trying to discern how much he cared about getting involved in a scuffle or whether he would just leave them to their mischief and be off to find food elsewhere. His head snapped to look down the street when he heard the clicking of female shoes on hard pavement. When he spotted her he understood how she could have satisfied both the human men and his own hunger.

She was a sight for sore, among other things, hungry male eyes. She was tall and curvy with tight ripped up jeans, black boots, and a brown cotton jacket that she buried her cold hands in. Her hair hung in long waves, it was the color of ebony and shone with a chestnut colored sheen when she reached the light of Gabriel's lamp. He could feel his fangs unsheathe as his brain sluggishly tried to formulate a way to discard of the three men and grab her up before she had time to scream.

He watched her, frozen in his indecision, as she tried to make it past the three oafs that were plotting to take advantage of her. Upon reaching the one named Greg he made a move for her and grabbed her arm, she let out a shout and they covered her mouth before she could alert anyone of her situation.

"Hey, baby calm the fuck down we just want a good time." said Tom.

Due to her arms being held behind her she started to kick her legs in a thrashing defensive manner, letting out strangled muffled yells as she fought. Gabriel watched for awhile until she kicked the human named Steve in the crotch when he went to grab one of her breasts. When he saw him hit her hard on the side of the head he knew he had to interfere, he wasn't quite sure whether he was going to her defense of his he was protecting his own interests, but either way he was called to act. Gabriel unsheathed his great black wings with a sickening silence and dropped from the lamp post without a sound into the darkness that lay behind its giving light.

He stayed in the shadows, mildly surprised that no one had noticed someone lurking so near, but Gabriel guessed that the men were very involved with their little project of pinning her two the ground as she struggled to no avail. He saw he begin to weaken and tire from the fighting and that she was bleeding from her head, either due to the blow she received or when she was being pulled onto the concrete sidewalk. He felt a shiver run up his spine when the smell of her blood caught the wind and made its way to him.

Gabriel walked into the light then saying, "Let her go..." his deep voice booming. He knew that he was larger than all of them, both in height and strength, but the fangs and wings would have frightened them on anyone, he tried to keep from smiling.

When they didn't oblige Gabriel's command he shot out a terribly strong punch into Steve's face, causing him to fly back into the street unmoving. He then stuck out a ferocious kick that sent the one named Tom into the street with his friend Steve, they both lay there unmoving. Finally Greg let the girl go, tossing her unconscious form to the concrete in front of Gabriel and he went running from the winged beast before him.

"Easy enough." he said, folding his wings away and grabbing up his leather jacket from the grass. He waited for a few seconds confirming that none of them were going to be much of a bother, he bent down to tend to the girl. She was strikingly beautiful with pale skin like porcelain and long inky lashes. He felt something like tenderness towards her as he touched her pretty face softly.

After deciding that flying through a city was a tad illogical, he began to break himself apart to become one with the wind. It was a fun trick, one he knew not all of his kind could pull off as well as he could, and the talent was helpful when one needed to be invisible, but not always reliable. He picked up her bag before he fell to pieces and found her ID with an address he recognized some what. He grabbed her up as he made his last transition into his shadow self and she easily followed directly into the same pattern.

He let his body detach, his and the girls every atom became one with the night sky as the wind obeyed his direction and took them to her home. Once approaching the two story brick house he followed her now recognizable scent to an open window on the top floor.

So with their bodies still one with the night he flew gracefully to the window and materialized. He placed her on the bed directly under the window as he stayed on the sill. The thought of feeding from her came and went, for some reason he felt she was different, maybe he still has some of her in him from when their atoms were mingling, maybe he was remembering what it was like to be human. Either way he knew he couldn't drink from her, especially because he knew it would weaken her already dismal state. "I wonder what your name is pretty girl." he almost sighed as he shrugged off his jacket and draped it over his arm as he forced his tattered black wings from his now naked back. It was impractical to disappear twice in one night, he wasn't at his full strength now without having fed and breaking himself apart took a lot of energy. He saw her move a little, and knew he had to go before she awoke. It would be dreadful to have to drain her dumb because she was unlucky enough to wake up too early.

Without opening her eyes she said the most beautiful word that ever graced Gabriel's presence, "Eve..." And he froze.

-o-

Eve opened her minutely and saw the familiar furniture of her room through he lashes, her head was pounding and she had no idea why. She then felt the breeze coming from her open window and cast her eyes in the direction of it. She saw something she didn't expect, but she didn't yell or even gasp, standing by her window was a man.

A man of terrible beauty, his eyes completely black and his hair so blond it was almost white, falling in a childish was around his handsome face. However, what made him the most remarkable man she had ever seen was the great black wings that were jutting out of his back like beacons of despair.

"Who are..." but before Eve could finish her question he flew from her window and into the night sky.

She began to fall back into the deep sleep of someone who'd had the energy beaten from them as she contemplated with stupefied wonder about the man who had saved her life, no not a man an angel...an angel of the night.


	2. Waiting Outside the Window

Eve awoke the next morning with a disgustingly intense headache and due to its intensity she could hardly recall why she had one. She walked out of her tiny bedroom into the second story bathroom that her father allowed her to take over. After she washed the sleep from her eyes and brushed her teeth she began to examine the wicked bruise that was starting to creep past her hairline. She tenderly poked at it and then decided to take a shower. It was then she started to replay what had happened the night before. She knew that when she was walking back from the movies she had been accosted by three men, she shivered remembering the one hitting her upside the head, which would explain the five alarm bruise that was doing a number on her pale skin.

The details were fuzzy, she could hardly remember their faces, all she could really latch unto was the feeling of fear. However, the memory of one face was standing out even beyond that of her fear and outrage, but she was having a hard time discerning if that face were real or from a concussion infused dream.

As she time lined the entire episode she could recall the feeling of someone picking her up before she lost consciousness, so she had a rescuer it seemed. Could it be the same man who was perched like a bird in her window looking down at her? Unlikely, or maybe she just allowed her savior to make a cameo in her dreams that night. Then she thought of wings, great big tattered wings, sprouting from that handsome man's back, that would explain how she got into her room. She almost chuckled, but she was hardly in a laughing mood. She toweled off and pulled on an oversized shirt and cotton shorts to go have a talk with her Dad about what had happened the night before.

After she explained to her Father that she got mugged on her way home (lie), and that it was pointless to call anyone to report it because she couldn't even begin to tell anyone what had happened for sure (lie), and that she felt fine and knew nothing happened to her aside from the head injury (truth), and that she made her way home on her own and had just went to sleep (lie), she left her Dad to lecture her on safety and that the next time she gets mugged to wake him and not just go to bed. Eve countered with the observation that he worked nights and wouldn't have been home and she wasn't about to call the hospital over nothing. He examined her, being the good doctor he is, and assessed that she wasn't concussed but that he wanted her to go to the hospital for a cat scan. She managed to convince him to leave her be and she carried a frozen pop tart up to her room so she didn't have to be questioned any longer.

She plopped on her bed and fooled around with the finicky wrapper and sighed happily when the double chocolate dream met her tongue in a marriage of pure bliss. After the quick consumption of her nutritious breakfast she deduced it was late enough for her best friend to be awake and filled in on her late night drama, and her pseudo knight in shining, and perhaps winged, armor.

-o-

"Yes! I swear big black wings and all!" Eve exclaimed to the perpetually sardonic looking Abby as they smudged their charcoal eyeliner a little better in the passing mirrors in JCPenny's.

"I dont know, I think it was just an awesome dream Evie, I mean as much as I would love to think that a big dark angel guy swooped to your rescue while you were walking home from the movies, its just so cliché, not to mention retarded sounding." Abby said as they walked casually out of the store exit and into the parking lot towards Abby's beat up Honda Civic hatchback.

"Good Lord, I hope he was real, well without the wings, he was so tormented and dangerous looking, the man of my dreams!" Eve said dramatically swooning over the cars hood doing her best Scarlet O'Hara impression.

"Ah tormented and dangerous looking, as every good winged fantasy man should be." Abby said scratching at the back of her short cropped red hair. "Well, hey, just incase we live in some weirdo parallel universe wear cool shit happens and Mr. Let-me-bust-out-my-wings-and-save-teenage-girls comes back, let me know. From what you've said about his looks he's a keeper, creepy wings and all!"

Then both girls laughed their way home.

-o-

Later that night, Eve stretched out on her bed and sketched out tattered black wings with a charcoal pencil. She looked at the clock and saw it was going on midnight and decided that she would finish her drawing of her dark and dangerous dream man in the morning.

She reached over and turned out her light and glanced out her window in a lame attempt to see if the beautiful blonde angel was hiding just outside her window. However to her imaginations dismay, just as the previous two nights, there was no pale intruder with tattered wings. She sighed and rolled over and let her dreams take her to him.

-o-

Gabriel felt his atoms begin to reform and knew that the night was telling him he'd been sitting outside her window too long, she had fallen asleep minutes after she had turned out her lamp. He spent hours watching the girls rib cage rise and fall and he was humbled by her frail and beautiful existence. He wasn't used to this perverse fascination with humans, and he certainly didn't fancy himself a stalker when the end result wasn't bloody, but something about her drew him to her. Perhaps it was because she was the first human he had been in close contact with, other than to eat, in years. He wanted to talk to her, to see if she liked to read and what she did in her spare time. What she learned in school and if she had any friends.

But he could never do that...

She would hate him, like everyone else has since before he could remember. What was life like before the turn into the half-life? He thought as he let the wind take his separated form back to his dwelling.

He went into the abandoned home and walked to the corner he read by. He opened up Steinback's "Of Mice and Men" but couldn't concentrate.

For yet another night Gabriel read, without really reading, and let his mind play with the image of Eve.


	3. Another Day

_Fire burning, stakes of fire and the chanting of demons and evils greater than ones imagination. Large men casting stones and women shrieking at the sight of the animated dead man. The man who was really only a boy in his own right. "Satan's son!", "Demon!", "Killer!", "DEVIL'S CHILD!"_

_The crowd came closer and closer as he cowered in the corner of his small cabin, his bride shrieking at his exposed fangs, letting the men with their wide brim hats and weapons of hate into his home. All of them drenched in garlic holding out crucifix's that didn't hurt him. He felt himself begin to black out from the pain, the pain of abandonment, the pain from the loss of his once normal life. He took to the window above him and left them all behind._

The shouting and screaming echoed inside his mind, echoes of memories from long ago. Glimpses of a past that he tried to force into the back of his mind with no success.

Gabriel tossed and turned in his makeshift bed for what seemed like the hundredth time lately. All his days consisted of horrid dreams of a past he tried to forget so badly, a past that hurt him and reminded him he was a monster not a man. This was one of the symptoms of going to bed without blood, you slept more like a troubled man than like the dead you were. Sooner rather than later the lack of his deadly doze would kill him.

He sat up slowly, his eyes still closed. He stuck out his hand to the place he knew the boards didn't meet in the burnt out home and the sun shone through, he didn't feel his skin burn, he felt nothing, nothing but the familiar numbness of the night.

He stood and went to the creaky armoire that he kept his clothing in, clothing that he stole from late night department stores and off clothes lines. There was no point getting a job on the night shift of anywhere. He didn't need a home, he moved around to abandoned places, to burnt up buildings, to someone else's shed. He and the wind were his means of transportation. Food, well food wasn't very costly, there is no material taxes on ones soul.

He sighed as he dressed in his normal uniform of dark denim jeans, a black long sleeved shirt, and his black leather jacket. Also, his favorite, and only pair of shoes, black steel toed boots he acquired sometime in 92', and they looked like they had seen every one of the years since then for the worse.

He rolled his shoulders and went into the dirty bathroom to brush and wash away any clue to his current residence. After feeling like he was semi clean, he went out to face yet another night of nothing. Maybe he would go to a bookstore, he was sick of American classics and needed something new to read. That and he always found intellectuals tastier. He smiled as he shrugged on his leather jacket.

He walked out into the night and took a deep breath of the cool air, and started down towards the main drag to find material to expand his mind, and a fulfilling meal.

-o-

"Eve seriously, I hate reading, I hate anything to do with reading. So that means that bookstores are off my list for ways to spend my Friday night." Abby said to Eve over the phone with dull disinterest.

"Oh fine you illiterate bum, I'll go alone." Eve laughed.

"Hey, that was easier to get out of than I would have guessed. Well, call me later if you want to go to that party in the city, you know how I love frat boys." Abby giggled.

"Okay, I'll think about it, but don't wait on me if you want to go, I would hate to think I kept you from getting an std on Phi Alpha's pool table."

"Okay, that was crabs not an std, and this is a PIKE party, we all know those boys have been trashed since yesterday and won't have enough sense to get it in. I'm just going for the free booze. You stay safe though, and don't walk around at night, I'd hate it if some guy with wings made all your dreams come true. It just doesn't jive with adolescent discontent man." Abby said sarcastically.

Eve said her good-byes and then flipped her phone down and placed it back into her bag. She walked down the main drag a few miles from her home and went towards the quaint little bookstore where she bought all of her art supplies in the small suburban town. They always had the best sketch pads and unique display of oil paints and charcoal pencils, granted her choices for art stores were limited but the book store never left her lacking.

She walked into the bookstore and shrugged off her brown sweater and placed it in her blue embroidered tote bag. She started to walk towards the art supplies when she decided to look at the fantasy novels to see if they had anything on winged men. She really liked the little fantasy she was building and wanted something to fuel it further, unlike her tactless best friend, Eve lived on fantasy and left men where she liked them, far away.

-o-

Gabriel picked up "The Count of Monte Cristo" and thumbed at the pages absent mindedly, he had read it before, and liked the concept of a vigilante, but he couldn't bring himself to read it again. He put the novel back on the shelf and started to meander around the store his eyes catching and sizing up people in the book store. If his stomach could growl it would have been loudly, but he has always been a picky eater.

He walked over to the fantasy section of the bookstore. He walked down the isle and skimmed the titles until his eye was caught on one about vampires. He laughed to himself and opened up the book to see what Ms. Rice had to say.

-o-

Eve walked down the isle until she reached the section of Horror/Fantasy, none of the titles jumped up at her and a few she stood back and leafed through in a bored way. She turned her head when she noticed someone standing near her looking at one of the books. Her eyes nearly fell out of her head, and she could have sworn her heart stopped when she saw the man standing next to her. He was tall and lean, with a muscular catlike build. He was pale and had white blond curls tumbling about his face. He wore dark clothing and was looking at the book he held with something like amusement playing across his lips.

He was so familiar to her, and she knew exactly why. "Excuse me," Eve started uneasily.

-o-

Gabriel lifted his eyes from the book at the sound of the familiar female whisper. His gaze then fixated on the face of a beautiful girl. Her black hair tumbled down her shoulders and her big green eyes stared into his black ones with an air of familiarity and wonder.

She had found him, he almost smiled to himself at the irony of her expression, he measured her with his eyes and tried to decide if he should walk away now or make contact, even though he lived amongst his prey, he rarely made conversation with them. He then shook his head and reminded himself to stop staring and respond. "Yes," he breathed softly.

She smiled sweetly then. "I know this is going to sound odd, but I think I know you...have I ever met you before?"

_Yes, I saved you and you saved me from the nothingness of my existence. _He shook his head at his inner melodrama,. "I dont believe so..." he said mentally berating himself, knowing she knew exactly who he was and that he just made this conversation more complicated than it needed to be.

"Oh.." she looked disappointed. "I'm sorry I bothered you then." she put the book hastily back on the shelf and started to walk swiftly down the isle. He was shocked on how quickly she had given up, maybe he had over estimated her memory of the other night.

"Wait!" he said making her stop and look back at him obviously embarrassed.

"Yea?" she said he cheeks beginning to flush.

"Don't go, do you like coffee?" he asked trying to hold unto to anything to keep her near to him, and he wanted to smack himself for it. He knew he was growing uncommonly fond of her, and that attachment was dangerous. You shouldn't play with your food.

She smiled awkwardly and shuffled her feet and then nodded, looking like an unsure child. "Would you like to get some then? There is a cafe right next door." He said putting the book back clumsily hoping beyond hope she would agree to go with him, which was again stupid, because you shouldn't play with your very attractive food.

"Yes, I suppose..." she answered and then walked with him outside into the cool night and towards the small but slightly crowded coffee shop next to the bookstore.

As they walked Gabriel stared at her in complete awe, she was much prettier awake, and he thought he could get used to seeing her more. When she looked up at him he jerked his head away trying hard to look forward. The shyness was new to him, and taking a young woman to a coffee shop was too. Normally he met women in back alleys as he drained them and left them there near death, he wasn't exactly Casanova. He went to take her hand in the crook of his elbow without realizing it and then dropped her hand shaking his head_, _he hadn't courted anyone in this century.

"What's your name?" she asked, making the whole situation more awkward.

He looked back at her with a innocently charming and very silly grin. "Gabriel."

They walked into the shop and went to the counter, Gabriel ordered and she did the same and then they found a small table in the corner.

"You know, you look so familiar," she said a line of concentration between her brows.

"I do?" he asked his deep voice barely above a whisper.

"Yea, and my name is Eve by the way, you didn't ask."

"Oh sorry, Eve..." he said her name a sweet sound vibrating off his lips, he felt like an idiot sitting there holding the disgusting beverage in front of him. It could have been mud for all he cared, but he needed to look human to her. Something else he would berate himself for later.

She smiled and drank her coffee all the while watching him, how could this man not be the one that flew from her window, he was exactly the same in every way. They traded casual conversation which mostly consisted of her talking about her friends and funny stories. Nothing in depth or detailed. She was testing the waters with her toe before she dived in with the important details. He found himself content with just watching and listening to her. He laughed and nodded at all the right times and offered opinions and little things about himself when necessary. He was shocked at how easy it was to be around her without wanting to jump across the table and rip open her jugular and gulp every ounce of what kept her alive. He was shocked that he actually had no desire to feed on her at all, he was just pleased to be near her.

The time passed quickly and when the baristas started to shut the lights off as a gentle warning he guided her toward the door.

"I had a great time thank you, you're very articulate. Not many guys can have an entire conversation on books, most like computers or games." she said to him as the walked down the street and stopped in front of the bookstore.

"I like reading, for a time the new electronics amused me but I always turn back to the comfort of words." he smiled.

She smiled back at him, "Well, I've got to go, it was nice meeting you Gabriel. We should do this again sometime."

"Tomorrow?" he asked eagerly, he almost pitied himself.

"Whoa, okay down boy," she laughed. "But sure, I'd love to. How about fiveish here?"

She saw his face loose its eagerness and sadness crept into his beautiful black eyes. "Is eight all right, five isn't good..."

"Yea, eight is fine, see you then." she then waved and walked away.

Gabriel watched her until she was just a speck on the horizon and then he walked into the alley that separated the bookstore and the cafe. He leaned against the wall and sighed deeply with a boyish grin on his face. "Another day with Eve..." He liked the idea, but his brain shifted gears when he smelt someone near. Dinner time.


	4. Meeting Place

Eve's hands shook as she reapplied her lipstick in the full the length mirror in her room for what could only be the hundredth time. She had a pesky tendency to get ready very fast and much to soon when she had to be somewhere at a specific time. She decided that she would kill time by just walking slowly to their meeting place as she nervously made her way towards the main drag in the tiny suburban Pennsylvanian town. She picked invisible lint from her black jeans and tugged self consciously at the gauzy cotton top she was wearing. She knew the entire ensemble had been a moronic moment of vanity once she was outside in the brisk air. Boots and flannel would have been more appropriate than the lacquered black ballerina flats and the thin fabric of her top. At least she adorned her trusty brown jacket in moment of clarity while walking out of the house, it was the only thing that kept her from shivering.

She reaches the bookstore in record time, it turns out that she couldn't make herself walk slowly, and there would be another twenty minutes before he would be there. However irrational it was though, she was still disappointed in not seeming him anxiously wringing his hands in front of the bookstore. She considered waiting inside because she was so chilled, but she didn't want to miss him and him leave thinking he was stood up. So she waited outside of the bookstore waiting for Gabriel.

-o-

He did not sleep that night, could not, and did not even bother to attempt it. He just laid in the darken corner of the building he called home and played and replayed the previous night with Eve and all the possible outcomes of the coming one. Some would have made most people blush, others were just the fantasy of in depth conversations on what he'd seen in the many years of his life but had never shared.

He laughed at himself now as he jogged between streets and back alleys to get the bookstore at the agreed time. A first hand account of how fashion had changed over the past few hundred years? She would either run away thinking he were an escaped inmate from a mental asylum or actually believe him and have congestive heart failure from fear alone.

He stopped outside of a convenience store and pushed open the glass door with little to no effort. He made his way back to where they kept the flowers all the while slowly becoming less noticeable, he grabbed a long stemmed red rose and made his way back out of the store separating him until he was unable to be seen by any human in the store. Gabriel coasted on the wind until he was near enough to their meeting place and he became a full figure again quite suddenly, he was shocked some what at the ease at which his little trick came and went due to the fact he was running on no sleep. Oh well, no point spending thinking time on how talented he thought himself in that moment, he needed to scan the growing crowd of Friday night pedestrians for the his pretty Eve.

-o-

Eve sat and waited for what seemed like hours. _Where was he? _She hoped to goodness she wasn't being left out in the cold, literally, when suddenly something red appeared in her line of sight.

"For you." stated a deep male voice.

Eve peered up to see Gabriel standing to her left brandishing a beautiful red rose looking sheepish. She took the rose from his hand without breaking eye contact.

"Thank you, it's lovely."

"You're welcome, so where would you like to go Miss Eve?" Gabriel asked extending an arm for her. Eve hesitated and then slowly put her arm through his. "You're very polite and proper." she mumbled, wishing she didn't sound like she didn't appreciate kindness, she just would have more in a warmer climate.

Gabriel furrowed his brow as he began to walk with her down Main Street. "Would you prefer if I was otherwise?"

"No, no! I am just not used to it." Eve exclaimed, afraid of having offended him. She relaxed when she saw he had.

"That is a shame that a young lady is not used to a man having manners," he grumbled, what was the world coming to? Everyone could stand to be pleasant, and this was the reasoning of someone who drank blood from unsuspecting victims. At least he did it with a Thank You.

"Chivalry died along time ago," Eve said sarcastically as Gabriel mumbled something under his breath. Eve looked up at his thoughtful face and decided it was time for a subject change. "So where are we walking to?"

"I am not sure, I figured you may have had something in mind." He smiled down her with his dark eyes.

Eve didn't have to wonder long on where she would like to go, as her stomach made an angry plea for fuel. "Have you eaten yet?" She saw him nod and her gut made a whimper of sadness.

He sensed the dismay in her features and body language and he realized his affirmation on not really needing to eat, which let's face it they weren't going to agree on a restaurant anyhow. "But we can go get some food for you if you haven't?" he asked tactfully seeing her cheer a little at the thought. He steered them towards a sad suburban imitation of a bistro as held the door for her as his hand on the small of her back ushered her fluidly into the place. He walked up to the hostess stand, his hand never leaving its place on her back, and asked for a table for two.

Eve tried not to get miffed at seeing the hostess redden and stare at her date for longer than she cared for. Eve then tried very hard not to wear he deadliest stare as the waitress who took their drink order did the same. Gabriel noticed that Eve was territorial and he made a galliant effort to stifle his laughter.

"So, tell me about yourself, I want to know everything." He asked her with a smile he knew was oozing charm, he was surprised at how honest his little demand was, he really did want to know everything he could about her. Granted he already knew a lot, her address, the color of her sheets, that she talks in her sleep and that she takes morning showers, not ones before bed. His smile stretched a little more.

Eve felt a blush creep up from her chest a little, her certainly seemed eager about her, and she was flattered. "Well, honestly there isn't a whole lot to tell you, I am pretty basic." she smiled, wishing she had some great background story to meet his expectations.

"I like basic, life can get too interesting some times, tell me about your basic life." He said trying to ignore the waitress as she sat the drinks down, her eyes glued to him. She sat two menus in front of them with a promise to be back and skittered off again to Gabriel's relief.

"Well, uhm, I was born here, and have lived in the same house my entire life. My parents split when I was very young, and I am an only child even though my Mom remarried. I like to read a lot. Hmm, what else? I am a senior in high school, I hate it, I don't have a lot of friends." she laughed a little at that. "But the one I do have is sort of maniac, I love her though. Her name is Abby. Anyway, I am turning eighteen in, well, four days actually. Anyway, that's about it." she smiled and looked at him expectantly.

"Oh my turn then?" He pointed to himself in a way that made her giggle and he continued, knowing he would have to edit a lot of what he would tell her about himself. He felt a tinge of sadness at that, but quickly blocked and hid it to the dark place in his mind he trapped his self loathing to die. "I am no longer in high school, I was originally from a small town England, but I moved around a lot from a very young age. I also enjoying reading, but from our last little outing I think you know that. I don't have any friends, which is due to the fact that I don't stay in one place long enough to make friends. That is about it, your turn again." He smiled back at her with a smile, thinking he pulled off sounding normal pretty well.

"Oh no, wait a minute mister you are already a hundred times for interesting than anything I could say. You were born in England? God, I haven't even left Pennsylvania! Where else have you been? How old are you? Spill!" Her grin was eager, but the waitress came back to ask what they would like before he could answer. Eve asked for the Chef salad topped with chicken and Gabriel asked for the waitress to go away, nicely.

He sighed deeply, he was stupid to think he was going to avoid her questions about him, so he was going to have to do a professional edit for her ears. "Okay, well, I was born in a little town outside of Liverpool, I moved around once I was grown. I lived in Romania, France, and Germany for a while before coming to America. I am twenty-four, by the way." _by the way of few centuries, but whose counting?_

"Well, that sounds adventurous." she smiled, she was getting the impression he didn't want to go into great details on his past and it made her a little apprehensive, but the waitress had come back with their salad and he changed the subject to movies before she could decide if it was rude or not to pry for those details he was withholding. She eventually followed his conversational lead and decided against asking for information he wasn't volunteering, there was always another day to be annoying and nosey.

Eve finished dinner and nearly came to fist a cuffs with Gabriel over the bill. Gabriel insisted to pay for it however, because he had suggested the restaurant and thought that on the off chance she was lying and really hated the entire plate of food she ate, at least she didn't have to be out the cash. She protested insisted she liked it very much but there was no getting around him paying for the meal. She smiled despite her protest, inwardly enjoying the pampering, even though she liked to consider herself a modern female with an independent streak.

"Can I walk you home?" Gabriel asked after they had made a few trips up and down the drag. It was getting late and he did want to feed and enjoy some of the night before he had to tuck himself into his burnt out abode.

"Oh no you don't have to do that, I live super close." she said with a smile.

"I would rather prefer to escort you." he said an edge of concern in his deep voice. She tried not to smile at his word choice.

"Yes I am sure you would, but my Dad wouldn't, I didn't tell him I was going on a date and I'm sure the sight of you would make him a little uneasy." she brandished the excuse with casualness.

He knew her Father worked nights, so he either had a night off or she was lying. Probably because it was a little soon for house visits and he was basically a stranger so he was sure she felt uncomfortable in letting him know where she lived, so he wasn't going to press it. "When can I see you again?" his grin was sinister.

"How about next Friday?" she did need to seem a little less available, and saying "TOMORROW!" would seem a tad desperate.

His face lost its grin but he agreed, he knew he could deal with the wait, after all the one thing he had an over abundance of was time. She said good bye with a very awkward half hug, but he managed to save the little send off with an elegant kiss on her cheek, and the blush her received was a lovely response.

He followed her home on the wind, to make sure she didn't meet up with any new friends, she was sort of a magnet for danger, after all it isn't every girl that gets courted by the undead.


	5. History

Sorry about the lack of update. I think it has been way over a year before I have even thought of touching this story, however I am out of school (graduate... shoop shoop) and I plan on finishing it before I begin college. I tried to make this chapter thought out and informative because I think I just jumped straight in. There may be historical blips but deal, I didn't research beyond google, so don't expect anything beyond superficial factiods. Anyway enjoy and I promise more shortly. Thanks you everyone, I will comment back to those who make the effort to review in my author's note because I really appriate more than you can know, well unles youre being critical. . lol.

ENJOY! R&R!!

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Gabriel traced the purple lines across his torso absent-mindedly. Memories lazily broke the surface of his mind as he glanced down at his scars. In 1644, a fellow Englishman ran a burning sword across his belly in attempts to claim his land in the English Civil war, that was when he left Liverpool. Gabriel smirked at the memory of the man weeping on his knees believing he burnt the flesh of an angel when he saw Gabriel's skin fuse back together and mend itself into tight purple lines.

He drug himself to his feet and into the cramped, dank bathroom, he illegally piped water into. The water company must be scratching their heads every month, because loosing water to a burnt shell of a home in the slummy part of the Philly suburbs was not normal, either that or the neighbor's water bill spiked abnormally in the two months he resided in the place. Either way he could not convince himself to care as he stretched in a lazy cat like motion. He grabbed the dirty white shirt he used as a makeshift towel to rub some grime off the neglected mirror to have a better look at himself.

It always shocked him when he took the time to gaze at the person he had become. The boy left in England was rosy and plump, soft, happy. The hard, pale shell before him made him feel like he was looking at a corpse. He self-consciously ran an index finger under his eyes, tracing the dark circles that took up residence there for the past two hundred years. He then followed the line of his jaw until he reached a moon shaped scar, white and puckered, lying near the path of his jugular, but too close to the bone of his jaw to really hit home.

Romania, well not exactly Romania, just the unclaimed and hardly named Slavic nations he ran to after coming too close to a monster in England, drinking the blood of innocents. In Eastern Europe, he encountered his first Covent, Russian upirs'. They were unlike the coldly civilized nature of his maker; these vampires took sick and perverse pleasure in murder and torture. Yet, he stayed with them. The desire to be with things that are like you will drive you to tolerate nearly anything. He stayed with the infamous group watching scores of villages destroyed, and watching the myth of vampire spread to mass hysteria across the continent. When the group began to fight among them to find leader supreme, Gabriel left, taking a few moon shaped vampire marks with him.

He had never been lower than he was after leaving the upir. He could hardly string together a coherent sentence in any modern tongue. He only knew the language of blood. He found himself in France, again with a convent of vampires. This time however the company was much improved, even if just as sinister. They offered him Chaucer and a wine glass filled with the blood of young boys. He convinced himself that because there wasn't massacre involved, the murders the convent committed was tolerable, especially if it was to Mozart. Time and wisdom changed his thinking however. He need not kill to feed, especially children, the favorite dish of his French hosts. He left them on the eve of the French Revolution settling himself in Germany in 1810.

It was at that time he began his habit of selective feeding, this is also when the dark circles made their home beneath his eyes, giving him a look of being malnourished, but it being during the Napoleonic wars and his tendency to speak French more so than English, and always more than German, every fraulien just accepted the behavior of their attractive French neighbor residing atop a beautiful green hill near the Austrian-German line. Only until nearly every father in the small town had come to the French mans cabin to threaten him for bringing his daughter home so drunk she was passed out and debilitated for a week, did the people notice Gabriel had not succumbed to Altersschwäche. Old age being a non-issue for vampires became a huge issue for the townsfolk, and in no time they drove him out claiming him a demon. It was about that time he moved to Berlin, and stayed there living in basements, factory sheds, old shipping yards and abandoned flats. He worked night shifts at odd places and stole numerous novels from nearly every home in the city. He even did a tour in the German army in the first great war, the memory caused Gabriel to smirk as he ran his finger across the discolored bumps in his lower back, where he has been shot three times whilst retreating back to Germany.

He lived in complete solitude and total detachment. Not until Hitler's Mien Kampf began to become a regular sighting in the libraries of every Berliner, did Gabriel become aware of the world, and himself. He knew he had grown into a rare specimen of his kind, perhaps a complete original; he had not killed a single person in over hundred years, at least not to feed. He didn't count taking the last blood of a pleading soldier, thinking he was God's angel instead of the demon from hell he knew he was damned into being, he thought that charity. In 1933 Gabriel left for America, again as a French citizen, using the wind to guide him to a French port, getting out of Germany was no longer an option. He had decided that going to a place he had never dreamed of going to was better then staying in a place where they burned the likes of Jack London, Darwin, and Voltaire.

He lived in New York mostly; finding the numbed and drugged people of the 60's easy and happy to feed on, leaving them back to rest on their dyed duvets and fuex furs to build up their hemoglobin.

He starred a bit longer at his hard, scarred chest, back before tugging a dark blue t-shirt over his head, and scrubbed his face clean of ash and dirt. He pulled lightly on the cabinet adjacent to the mirror and contemplated the old spice he stole for the occasion he was dressing for. He decided against it, he knew he smelt fine, one of the pluses of being one of the damned, you were guaranteed never to smell or look anything less than perfect to your prey. He grimaced at the thought of appealing to Eve as if he was a Venus flytrap. However, he knew he was more than just a flower and she was made up of something much more than your average housefly. He sighed as he walked inhumanly fast toward the corner bookstore, he knew he was never allowed to bite, because he depended on every beat of her heart.


	6. Whisper on the Wind

Thank you to NightCrawlerLover for your lovely review! Here is chapter six. It is a decent length and has pretty good ending, hope you like it!

R&R!!

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He heard the steady drum of her heart from the sidewalk as he approached the bookstore; he could easily pick her out from the beat of the Friday night strollers, her heart sang for him. He knew she saw him before his own eyes fed on her countenance because of the sudden rapidity and volume of her heart. He felt a smile stretch across his face and tried to subdue his pleasure as not to alarm her with what could be taken as maniacal glee. However, when he reached her he found her smile was just as wide and alarmingly beautiful. He drank in the image of her pearly white smile and slightly purple lips radiating her body's response to the temperature under a glossy sheen of pink lipstick. Her cheeks lifted into round apples, pink with the glow of happiness. Her eyes were bright and alive, the color of celery, and were shaded by her long black lashes which she accentuated with dark makeup, giving her a slightly devilish gaze. Gabriel tried to control the shiver that ran down his spine so she wouldn't notice that it had absolutely nothing to do with the cold.

He finally reached her and on an instinct, she couldn't quite understand she lifted her hand, which he in turn took into his own and brought up to brush against his ice-cold lips.

"Been outside long?" she pondered, her voice sounding distant like an echo, probably due to the rushing of her blood into her ears.

"Why?" he questioned, without responding to her original remark.

"Your lips are like ice, I would hope you hadn't just walked out of a warm house," she laughed but was cut short by the sudden crestfallen look on his angel's face.

"Yes, I walked here; I am also without an automobile. Would you like to go inside? I am sure you could use a cappuccino by the look of your hands. You should have waited inside; you're nearly blue!" he smiled slightly, he felt his mouth was taunt however and tried to shake off her remark on his inhuman body temperature whilst he placed a hand on her lower back and guided her into the bookstore. It was eight so the tiny café was still open, it closed an hour before the bookstore itself so they had until nine to sit and talk. He planned all throughout the next week the questions he wanted to ask her. Gabriel walked to the counter and watched as the cashier turned from white to red in a few seconds. He almost laughed allowed when she turned to the other girl behind the counter to sign in his direction. He heard Eve clear her throat with a slightly agitated tone and felt pride in knowing she felt territorial.

"Hi, can I help you?" the teenager stuttered as her friend came up from behind her to gawk in turn.

"Can I have a medium cappuccino? Darling do you like a lot of foam?" he smiled knowingly to Eve watching a playful smile take the place of the annoyed expression she was wearing before.

"Yes I love a dry cappuccino, hunny." she tried to keep herself from laughing, as the two girls looked bereft at the terms of endearment.

"How did I forget, my love? Five years together I would have thought I had committed everything to memory!" he couldn't keep the smile restrained any longer as it spread in full force across his face.

Eve giggled as the girl mumbled the price and yanked the ten-dollar bill out of Gabriel's hand. They both walked down to the other end of the counter watching the crestfallen café girl pout while spooning frothy milk foam from the steaming tin. She handed Eve the cup without so much as an 'Enjoy!' They took themselves to a small corner table and sat.

"You know, you never order anything whenever we go out. It is starting to give me a complex." Eve playfully remarked as she added a packet of sugar to her drink glad to sip the warm milk and espresso. She was eyeing the cup, not noticing the dark expression that stormed across his dark eyes.

"Lactose and tolerant. I don't like to eat out, I would not want to risk feeling ill and ruining a night with you. I ate and drank my fill before meeting you." he replied in turn, feeling stupid for not saying he was a Vegan instead, he didn't want to install the image of him throwing up over a glass of milk in her head two dates in.

"Understandable, so if you order a latte I should know I am bad company?" she jested.

"You would never be bad company." he said with earnest.

She laughed allowed at a joke he wasn't understanding and then sipped her drink again. The coffee left a dollop of foam on her bottom lip. He reached out quickly before she could, to wipe the milk from her lip with his thumb watching her eyes flutter and her color rise.

She cleared her throat embarrassed by his closeness and he leaned backward feeling rude a forward. "Tell me more about where you came from, Liverpool? Why did you leave?"

He looked out the dark window thinking about what to say and decided for the truth, with a few adaptations. "Internal issues, I ran away."

"And your family?" she asked, her brow creasing slightly.

"They didn't want me, trouble I suppose, and cowardice. I went to Romania." he replied looking at his hands.

"How old were you when you left England?" she asked with worried confusion in her voice, had she met up with a criminal or something, what could he have done to be rejected by his parents?

He thought for a minute and decided fifteen was a reasonable age; teenage boys were kicked out of their home constantly at that age right?

"fifteen." he replied looking at his hands instead of her eyes.

"My goodness that is young!" she exclaimed a bit loud.

_Wrong then about the age thing, _he berated himself. "What did you do to deserve that?" she automatically regretted asking when she saw him grimace.

"It was not my fault, I did not choose to have what happened happen to me, but I am afraid that is all I really want to say about the matter for now. Can I ask questions about you?" he looked up at her with such earnest and pain she realized she was being too candid about the life of a man she hardly knew, it was rude and she felt ashamed. She nodded at him and felt relieved when she saw the pain on his face replace itself with a look of pleasure and what could possibly be wonder, although she didn't want to kid herself into thinking someone like him could wonder about her boring life.

"Why did you parents divorce?"

"My Mom slept with some guy and my Dad caught her, that's why I live with him, I can't really look at her anymore, I mean I love her because she is my Mother but I don't like her, I think betrayal is about the cruelest thing one human can do to another." she spilled the sentence out almost causally, it was something she rarely told anyone, the grudge she held against her own mother. However, due to the glimpse into his dark past made it easier for her to speak about the troubles of her own, I oddly comforting feeling. While reveling Gabriel thought back to a time in his life he experienced such betrayal, his small screaming bride with a stake in her hand was the epitome of betrayal.

"I agree, and then you moved here with him?" Gabriel asked, knowing the answer.

"Yep, he is a great guy I love him a lot." she smiled thinking of her short, plump, and nervous father.

"Do you look like him?" he asked smiling.

"Not at all, accept for my coloring I guess. He is shorter then me, my mom is exotic looking; I don't really know how they ended up married really. They are completely different the two of them. My mother is tall and olive toned, she has this pin straight dark brown hair with all these gold flecks in it, and honey colored eyes. She was beautiful, still is. All that Greek blood I guess. My father on the other hand is short, rounded and baldish with age and is pale, green eyed and dark hair. What about you look like you parents much?" she said the last part in conversation and realized she shouldn't have because of where the conversation before had ended. "I'm sorry you don't have to answer that."

Gabriel smiled. "Yes, I look like both of them. But they look alike. Blond, my mother had curly hair, my father waves. I guess that is why I have ringlets like a girl."

"I like them, although I feel inferior, I think your hair far out shines my bed head, I don't even bother brushing it anymore."

"I think your hair is pretty, its windswept and loose. Much more attractive then springs." he laughed slightly yanking a curly down past his nose until it was straight and then letting it go, it bounced back with incredible force landing again in perfect ringlet. Eve laughed aloud enjoying the display. "Tell me more about your family I have a pretty picture painted in my head of blond model types."

"Hmm, my mother had a round face, father very angular,"

"Inherited your father's face then?" she said appraising his high cheekbones and prominent jaw with her eyes.

"I suppose. They both had blue eyes, and were tall." he sighed and reached for the hand she lazily rested on the table. He pulled her hand toward his side of the table and examined her fingertips contently.

"Had? You make it seem like their dead." she said a bit troubled.

"They are, not long after I left home, they were killed." he said causally but snapped his head up at her gasp.

"I am so sorry! That must have been terrible. Do you have any siblings?" she asked hoping no one else had to go through that.

"An older brother whom had a wife and child. All murdered." the storm clouds settled again over his eyes and he stopped toying with her soft fingers.

She nodded softly and decided to leave the subject to rest after witnessing the way it changed his mood radically. In a hope to raise his spirits she offered to take a walk down the street, the café staff looked like they wanted to close up shop and they were the only ones left in the place. He nodded and rose to take her arm in his and she gladly obliged.

They walked down the street arm and arm and she was shaking from the cold.

"Perhaps a walk was a bad idea," she said regretfully as her teeth chattered.

"Perhaps you should wear more clothes." he said eyeing the cotton tunic and black tights she wore under the brown hoodie she clung to.

"I think you are right. I am going to walk you home." he decided.

She didn't argue although the thought of an early ending was disappointing. "Would you want to see me again? Or have a frightened you due to a patchy past?" he inquired with a slight but pleading smile.

"No, I am not scared. I would love to see you again." she chattered and she clung closer to him, not thinking that he was radiating absolutely no body heat.

"Good then, tomorrow? Tell me if I am monopolizing your time but I think it is supposed to get warmer tomorrow night. It is March after all." he grinned at her.

"Oh maybe in Europe that means something but a Pennsylvanian March will always be cold. But regardless tomorrow is fine." she was on her street now and they crossed under a streetlamp and she shuddered, but not from the cold. "I hate that streetlamp…"

"I know," he replied.

Her head snapped up to look at the side of his face as he screwed his eyes shut and mentally berated himself for giving away a vital secret.

"I knew it! I knew you looked familiar!" she gasped and stopped walking as her hand flew up to her mouth in shock. Her eyes snapped at his back and then his face and back again. She wouldn't willingly admit she thought he had wings but she saw it all too clearly in her minds eye.

"Come, it is getting late, let me walk you to your door." he said in defeated tone, because they stopped in front of her house. "The porch will safe guard you against the wind."

"How did you know this is my house?" she said defiantly.

_Strike two Gabriel. _He lifted his fingers to his temples and screwed his eyes shut. "I guessed."

"Liar! You're the man who saved me! I knew it!" she said as a smile crept across her face. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want to frighten you, I thought you would have forgotten you hit your head pretty hard I didn't even believe you really saw me." he said turning slightly away from her preparing to run to the ends of the earth to escape shame. "I am sorry; I know you were probably horrified."

"You saved my life."

"I got involved; I shouldn't have let to see me."

"Why? You're human, what does it matter if I saw you, you're my hero. That sounded stupid, I know, but you are!" she smiled as his eyes jerked open and he gawked at her.

"_You're human, what does it matter if I saw you,"_ He repeated what she said over in his head. "Right…" he whispered. "I am only human,"

"Although, I have to wonder how you managed to get me in my room, I thought you had wings." she blushed as she said it as she now guided him up to her porch and he followed with an eerie silence.

"Wings?" he nearly whispered.

"I know it's dumb…"

"Stop ridiculing your intelligence please." he said as he stepped nearer to her, running a hand up her neck and resting it behind her head, he drew himself nearer.

She began to defend her self-deprecation when he suddenly caught her mouth in his own. She gasped in a shocked breadth before being completely succumbed in his kiss. He ran his tongue past her lips and into her warm mouth and he groaned. He hadn't kissed a human in centuries and it caused him to absorb her warmth greedily. He pressed his body against hers tightly and he put his free hand on her waist, pressing her hips into his. He pulled away allowing her to breath for a second before she lunged at him, pulling him closer by his shirt and hair.

Suddenly however the porch light snapped on and Eve found herself gripping nothing. She opened her eyes and she was alone on the porch. She heard a whisper as a gust of wind whipped around the house and hit her, it said "_good night…"_

There were only two ways to explain her pounding heart and swelling lips. Either she was going insane or Gabriel was not as human as she thought.

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hopefully i will update again tonight. I have to go to work though now, I work at the cafe in my local Borders. Yea that is right people, I had cameo in my own story. XD anyway remember to review! It is motivating. adios.


	7. Silver Slugs Lined Up Like Bullets

Hello everyone! I must say i am very pouty for the lack of reviews. XD i got more when i didnt write. lolololol. anyway i hope you guys enjoy this chapter, but i first want to clarify a few things about my vampires. we all have the whole rice/myer/stoker mix ups so i want to get it down pat how my hybrid vampire works, because he is a mix of all of the types.

like stephanie myer's vampy-kins my vampires are very self aware and like humans and dont want to turn them or whatever and view their vamp-ation as more a curse, unlike stoker and rice.

however i am a traditional gal and my vampires cant go out in the light without being burnt like rice and stoker. also their nice and pale like all three write.

another tid-bit that me and miss myer's vamps have in common is the whole being cold as ice and hard as marble. however, when my vampires drink blood they get warmer for a time until they have used the blood up and then they get cold again. same deal for the whole dark circle issue. when they feasty the circles lighten. kind of like what stephanie myer does with eye color. however when my vamps feed their eyes turn redish. like rice's.

also like anne rice's vampires mine cry blood. .

i got the whole winged deal from the van helsing movie. i like the idea of wings, they sorta juxtaposes the whole damned soul with the visual of angels wings, however i like to think they look like bat wings. that is the only bat like quality my vamps have, i dont jump on the bram boat with the whole transformation thing, it aint cute, let the werewolves have their thing yo. XD

i think thats about it, the whole wind travel thing i borrowed from annette curtis klause. i must say her simon beats out every vampire ever dreamed up EVAR. except for maybe Nicolae, whom i created in my other story 'A Legend Revealed' which is complete and you are alla gonna read WRITE NOW. (lol write now... XD ) just kidding guys.

anyway. enjoy the chappie. it took a long time to write. forgive the typos, i dont really edit well. adios.

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He clutched his tattered sheets as he gleefully berated himself for edging her closer to the truth. Then he berated himself for berating his actions, it was all worth risking his identity for her kiss. He smiled and tried to restrain a giggle. Then he shook his head, he was acting like a young girl, one-step away from kissing his hand. He sighed watching the sunbeam through the crack in the wall. He pulled the sheet over his head and shut his eyes. There was no point trying to sleep, he knew he could not possibly get himself calm enough to rest.

Eve sighed and stretched, it had been a good night, and all she dreamt of was his cool breadth and full mouth. Although, she did have a few chilling dreams among the amazing reenactments of the night before. Some things weren't adding up about him, his ability to disappear in an instant for one, and the whole wind talking. What was he, was he even real?

_Of course, he is real. He has to be. I have the flower to prove I'm not insane._

Eve glanced over to her desk at the blood red rose that sat on her desk in the tallest glass she could muster up in the depths of the kitchen cabinets. She stood to look at the clock; it was two in the afternoon. She jumped back on her bed, picked up her phone, and dialed Abby.

"Hey stranger, way to ditch your friend dude." Abby said as a greeting.

"Sorry but I have a good reason." Eve claimed, near giddiness.

"Oh yea? What?"

"I met this guy…" Eve began.

"Oh seriously Eve, a guy? Don't be that kind of girl. It is totally unoriginal." Abby complained.

"He is the guy, who saved me, I swear, he is beautiful Abb, you would completely understand." Eve exclaimed.

"Oh yea? I'll decide. When do you see him next?" she demanded.

"Tonight." Eve said sheepishly.

"Kay, I'll be picking you up so I can meet this dream boat and I'll determine whether he is ditch worthy thanks." Abby said.

"Right then, see you around eight, we are meeting at the book store." Eve explained.

"Kay kiddo, bye."

"Bye."

Eve hung up the receiver and lounged back on her bed envisioning the beautiful Gabriel before her.

"Dang, he must be pretty freakin' sexy for you to go to that much trouble!" Abby proclaimed out of the passenger seat window as Eve walked out to the car. She opened the door and sheepishly lowered herself into the seat as Abby let out a low whistle. "Can it you pervert."

"Whoo hoo, touchy?" Abby gunned the engine after taking a final look at her friend who was uncharacteristically dolled up. Eve wore snug black skinny jeans and a charcoal shirt that draped over her and fell slightly off one shoulder exposing a lacey red bra strap, the night was warmer than it had been but she looked a bit skimpy even for the balmy seventy-five that night. She paired the ensemble with red lacquered ballerina flats that pointed at the toe and smudged charcoal eye makeup.

They made it to the bookstore in record time, thanks to Abby's insane driving. She pulled up to the curb and Eve unhooked her seat belt waiting for Abby to cut the engine. Eve looked at her friend and saw the slack-jawed expression painted across her face as she gazed out Eve's window. Eve turned to see what caught her friend's attention and gasped as she looked at Gabriel's smug looking face peering in through the open window.

"Hello, I am Gabriel. Are you joining us tonight…"

"Abigail, her name is Abby." Eve interjected seeing that Abby was in no condition to speak.

"Are you joining us Abigail?" he whispered in an almost seductive manner.

"Nope, just droppin' off the kid. Have fun you guys!" she then mouthed something like "He's smoking'!" very obviously, Eve felt her ears burn as Gabriel's laugh ringed like a bell. She got out of the car as Gabriel took her hand in his and Abigail peeled away from the corner screaming "CALL ME!" out the window.

"I am so sorry; she can be a bit humiliating." Eve said feeling the blush spread across her face. A few pedestrians stared disapprovingly at the two of them for being associated with the uncouth blue hatchback buzzing down the main strip as fast as its four cylinders could carry it.

"Feel no need to apologize, the display was quite entertaining, and it made you blush. Have I told you how beautiful that is?" he said brushing his cold finger across her cheek causing her ears to ring.

"You may have mentioned it." she said through tight lips.

He laughed aloud and directed her away from the main drag into a more secluded area. "Where are we going," she asked, with more of an edge to her voice than she intended.

"Are you scared?" he said a bit worried.

"No, I guess nervous. We don't know each other that well in all reality, I just kinda want to know where we're headed." she said, honesty was the best policy, even if a tad embarrassing.

He felt his face fall, he was obviously more invested in the emotional aspect of their relationship, but he shook off the rejection. "Would you care if it was a surprise? It is one of my many favorite places on this earth, I want to share it. The night is perfect." he said to her, begging slightly with his eyes, knowing the moonlight would allow for a perfect doe like glean to glint off his dark eyes perfectly.

She took one look at him and was sold. She nodded and set off on a steady pace hand in hand with him, enjoying the temperate night but flinching when they rounded a corner or ally and was smacked with a nippy breeze. They walked up to a cast iron gate, the darkness was eerie and intruding, but she felt somehow safe and comforted by Gabriel. After all, she reasoned, if he wanted her dead he wouldn't have saved her so many nights ago.

Gabriel guided her past the gate with an inhuman silence and grace. She felt excited by the seclusion when suddenly she noticed the three-foot granite stones lined up in rows.

"A cemetery!" she exclaimed, flabbergasted.

"Calm down, it is really beautiful, look at the trees." he said trying to sound stern, but he couldn't hide his amusement at her shock.

"There are dead people under our feet, this is creepy." she said a whiney tone seeping into her voice.

"Oh please, you are a grown woman, you should know there is absolutely nothing wrong with graveyards," he laughed, seeing his wince at the term. "And besides, isn't there anything a tad comforting about this place, it's so peaceful. After all, this is the one place everyone is guaranteed equality and respect. Also, it isn't like there are actual people under us, just their shells. The people left long ago." he stopped walking and pulled her down to sit next to him on the cool grass near the center of the cemetery.

"You have romantic ideals on death, Gabriel." she smiled glancing up at him.

"More so about the soul. 'I simply believe that some part of the human Self or Soul is not subject to the laws of space and time.'" he sighed slightly.

"Hmm, that is pretty."

"Carl Young, I must say I always enjoyed his theology more so the Freud." Gabriel smiled down at her again.

"So you believe in a person's soul, I thought that were something old fashioned, not many people think that way." she replied.

"Do you?" he asked, watching her nod in return. "I, for some reason, cannot partake in the idea that we are on this earth to take up space and we are nothing but cells. I think my being is encompassed in my soul, which will pass out of my body in death, and into the realm, it belongs in, where I shall mingle with other souls. What is life without feelings connected to things on a metaphysical level?"

"My goodness, who said that?" she said with a giggle, surprised by the depth and conviction of his beliefs.

"I did." he smiled contently.

"I like what you say."

"I like you."

She smiled, feeling shy. She looked up at the clear, full moon, working as a spotlight on them. "It is so bright."

"Feeling a direct connection?"

"What do you mean?" she asked confused.

"Eve, the mother goddess of Mesopotamia, wasn't the moon her symbol? Or was it the letter V?" he creased his brow thoughtfully and shrugged.

"I'm not too sure, but what about Gabriel? Would that be the reason you like cemeteries so much, all the statues of angels? Feeling a direct connection?" she joked. He laughed aloud in response. "Hardly, and I believe you can attest to that my dear."

She gulped audibly causing him to chuckle as he lay back on the grassy lawn of the graveyard, stretching out his long legs and bringing his hand to lace together across his chest. She glanced back at him, he was so long and lean she felt a little unnerved. He really was the most beautiful person she had ever come across. She however, was feeling more reassured in his humanity, nothing strange was going on. She probably was just blowing up what happened last night, being in a spin most likely caused her mind to lag behind the situation, she reasoned. She then brought herself to lie next to him and sighed.

Gabriel extended an arm to bring her closer to him so he could feel her warmth, not thinking about bringing attention to his cool temperature, until she shivered. "You know, you are always so cold. You should think about getting your blood pressure checked." she was only joking until she felt him tense, perhaps he was ill. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to offend you."

"You didn't." he said shortly.

"Oh." she felt him take his arm back. She shot up to a sitting position and then leaned over him. "I did offend you! I didn't mean you had to stop holding me!" she shut up after that realizing how stupid she must sound to him.

A smile played lightly over his full mouth. "Oh, pardon me; I didn't want to give you a chill."

"Why are you so cold all of the time though?" she asked running her fingertips over the veins that stood above the muscle of his hands.

"Perhaps my heart doesn't beat fast enough." he said playfully, knowing it didn't beat at all. She smiled at his jest without realizing the extent of it and instead decided to ask him more questions while he seemed to be in the mood to oblige.

"Last night, when my dad turned on the porch light, you left so quickly. It was like you disappeared." she cut her eyes sideways to glance at his face, when she saw the hardened expression she looked back at his their now entwined hands. He sat up and took his hand from hers to then clench it in a fist next to him; she felt her face pull into a pout.

"My reflexes are fast." he said in her general direction sharply.

She decided that he wasn't going to be the only one of them who could play the situation according to their mood. "Fast reflexes? That would be difficult for someone with a slow heart rate wouldn't it. There is something you are not telling me, I would like to know."

He looked at her with stormy eyes, there was lightning practically bursting behind his retinas. She took in a sharp breadth with something like fear boiling in her veins, or perhaps desire. She had never been looked at like the way he looked at her then. Every one of his features aligned in perfect, if angered, angular lines. His jaw protruded forward as he clenched his teeth and his upper lip pulled upward in a fuex snarl. She felt her head start to ring as her blood began to move to her brain at too fast a rate. She knew her reaction to his death gaze was irrational but she couldn't help herself.

He saw her coming before she even thought it, he knew, time slowed, he had every opportunity to stop her. However, he let it happen.

Eve laid her warm mouth over his. He didn't move. He was frightened. She ran her fingers up his throat and buried them deep into his thick curls, mimicking his kiss the night before. She parted his mouth with her tongue and he gladly granted her entrance as he slowly ran his hand up the sides of her legs and rested them on her hips. He almost choked when she let out a sigh that sounded like a purr. _This is going to get dangerous_, he thought fleetingly before he buried the thought and lifted her effortlessly by the hip to sit across his lap, never breaking their kiss.

She took her hands out of his hair to explore the chiseled features of his face. His skin was smooth, but hard and cold as marble. He felt like a moving statue under her, she shivered at the eerie thought and she felt him tense. He stopped reacting to their kiss and pulled away from her mouth to look into her eyes. "You're cold."

"Hardly," she said on a wicked sigh, dragging him back into a deep kiss.

_Where the hell is this coming from? _She pondered to herself, feeling alive in her confidence. However, when he rolled her onto her back she began to feel her confidence shatter and the voice of doubt came to the forefront of her mind screaming, _virgin! _He must have noticed her apprehension to their new position; he stopped kissing her leaning his forehead against hers.

"I will do you no dishonor. Do you trust me?" he whispered.

"You, yes. Oddly enough, I know. However, trusting me is another matter entirely." she laughed.

"I trust you." he whispered seriously.

She sighed and nodded, kissing him lightly on the corner of his mouth. He then pulled away from her slightly to lay a soft kiss on her forehead, and another on her nose. His lips were as light at flower petals and she smiled widely as he kissed both of her cheeks slowly before bringing his mouth back to hers. This time he kissed her gently, almost shyly. She knew he was just trying to reassure her of his harmlessness and comfort her. Her heart however was recalling the all too recent breathless tangle and her blood began to pump through here again at a rapid pace.

He heard her heart began to race as he tried to separate himself from what he knew she was thinking. He couldn't be caught in the kiss. He didn't want to risk exposing himself, or hurt her. However, what he intended and what happened were conflicting opponents for the battle of his heart as Eve ran her warm palms up his chest to grip the collar of his shirt and bring him into a closer kiss. He responded with equal vigor as he plunged his tongue into her mouth and pressed her body into the soft ground, reviling in the feeling of every one of her soft curves touching his body. He hitched one of her legs over his hip and he rocked her into the grass, causing her to gasp and giggle slightly before he took her mouth again.

His mind was becoming cloudy and all he felt was her pressed against him, her smell changing and filling his nostrils. Her warm taste intruded upon his pallet as her sighs filled his ears and her heart pounded against his chest. He was lost. He could not think. His last coherent thought, before pleasure engulfed him totally was to pull away and run with the wind, however he didn't listen. He felt every atom of his being hum with energy and he felt himself begin to separate, she was coming with him. They were one, completely in the moment. No two other beings could come close, as their atoms broke down and mingled with the atmosphere. He knew he should stop, the air was making them too light, but her warmth was too inviting and he was past the point of control.

He smelt metal, salt, and sex and he knew he had nipped her with his fang. It wasn't until she said "Ouch!" did he surface.

"Oh my God!" he heard he exclaim loudly as he tried his hardest to collect them. As they came back he realized they were father gone than he imagined as they slammed back to earth and he pulled himself quickly from her to lean against a tomb. He was breathing hard. He hadn't even opened his eyes but he could tell by the smell of fear she expelled and her rapid breathing, she was about to reach hysterics.

Finally, he opened his eyes slightly to look at her.

She was the color of marble. Her heart was beating slow and terrified, she was about to go into hyperventilation. He saw her bleeding lip right before she pulled it into her mouth to apply pressure, or hide it, he wasn't sure. Her eyes were wide and her brow and throat glistened with sweat. He saw her eyes fill with tears.

"How did you do that?" she whispered, her voice shaking.

"I'm sorry." was all he could muster.

"Tell me, now." she demanded, the panic seeping into her voice.

"The air did it." he said, barely audible.

"Gabriel, we were floating. The air didn't do that. I didn't do it. How did _you _do that." a tear spilled over as she asked him to tell her something he couldn't bring her to burden.

"You do not want to know. You could not even imagine. Leave it be, I promise to never bother you again. I am so sorry. Forgive me, do please think well of me. Do not be frightened love." he heard his own voice crack right before he detached from her sight and rode the wind as far as he could, while still making sure she made it home.

Eve got to her feet shakily. She felt herself starting to become frantic as she tried to rationalize the situation to his benefit. Nothing was working. She walked out of the graveyard and took back road shortcuts to her house. She could care less how unsafe the roads were, she had probably just kissed a demon and survived, what did a mugger have on that?

She reached her house and up to her room without breaking down. Upon sitting on her bed however tears streamed down her face as she rocked herself to sleep, why did it have to be _him,_ why did Gabriel have to be the one she decided to fall for?

He watched her walk home so fast she looked like she was about to break into a flat out run at any minute. Finally, he made it to her window; he watched her sobbing on her bed and listened through the pane as she said his name all night in her sleep.

* * *

on an ending note, everyone listen toe bloc party. they motivate the writer like you wouldnt believe. for those of you with radioblog and limewire and myspace (so everyone, no excuses!) listen to hunting for witches and on. i put the lyrics to on below. it is amazing. and if you like all this mythical thing youll love their stuff. they mention vampires a lot in their songs. anyway R&R

Ohohoh! also, i set the rating to T for now because i want to make it easier for people to access, but fear now, there shall be sex. XD buh bye!

I Am On  
Switched On  
A Sudden Clearness, A Clarity  
Hidden Away, In Every Locked Toilet  
I've Been Waiting For You In The Joiners Arms  
I Know Your Name  
I Know Your Name  
I've Danced With You  
We're All Friends Here  
Silver Slugs Lined Up Like Bullets  
Rolled Up Twenties, They Disappear

You Make My Tongue Loose  
You Make My Tongue Loose  
I Am Hopeful And Stutter-free  
You Make My Tongue Loose  
You Make My Tongue Loose  
I Am Hopeful

Friday Night I Do All The Talking  
A Pint And A Fight, The Dance Floor Is Mine  
Truth Serum And Limbs That Won't Listen  
Drunken "i Love Yous", On Top Of The World

And When It Runs Out  
We're Chasing Something We'll Never Catch  
And When It Runs Out  
We Buy More  
A Flatness So Bleak, **I've Been Bitten By A Vampire**  
A Flatness Bleaker Than The One It Replaced

You Make My Tongue Loose  
You Make My Tongue Loose  
I Am Hopeful And Stutter-free  
You Make My Tongue Loose  
You Make My Tongue Loose  
I Am Hopeful  
I Can Charm  
I Can Charm Them All


	8. Torn, I am Filthy

The spring passed quickly and uneventful. March ran into April as the rain brought in the colorful flowers of May. The summer came next, groggily and hot. Steam radiated off the concrete wasteland of the Philly suburb that Eve haunted. She walked slowly as the sweat running down her back caused her yellow tank top to cling to her skin.

She wiped her brow to no avail, for the next cascade of sweat came in mere minutes. She kept batting the nats out of her eyes as she silently cursed Abby for avoiding her after school again. She knew she had become a shell of a human, for reasons she refused to think about, and her best friend took to ignoring her, because she couldn't accept Eve's behavior.

There were only a few days left of her senior year of high school, and she felt as if the last part of it didn't even happen. Not only had she missed her prom, she took to sleeping all of her free time and becoming an absolute recluse, except for her excursions to the bookstore for art supplies. The guidance counsler had met with her father about the off beat behavior her teachers saw in her after that one weekend in mid March. She shivered despite the incredible heat. Her thoughts never failed to return to him. Even when the sun burnt the back of her head, making most sane people blank and desperate for the mildew reek of their danky old, and very fridget, home, cooled by the humming wall unit, her mind could recall every angle of his perfect face.

She smacked the back of her neck, knowing she felt the minute stab of a mosquito's tooth. She readjusted her heavy messenger bag on her shoulder, filled to the brim with all the things that had accumulated in her locker over the past four years of high school. She didn't feel the sweet release of life outside of public education, nor that of a student about to be set free to live the summer before college. She couldn't even bring herself to look forward to college, opting to attend school at the local community college, instead of the prestigious Pen. State, where she was accepted to attend in November, due to early application.

Eve sighed deeply as she trudged up the few wooden steps before reaching the white washed porch and green door of the home she shared with her father. She flicked away a few peeling paint chips and then unlocked the door. When she walked in the door she was almost knocked completely backward from the cold air being pumped out of the sad square in the living room wall. She dumped her bag at the door and lumbered over to the wall unit. After making it warmer, a kind of self torture, she dragged herself and bag up the staircase and then fell face forward unto her bed. Quickly curling into the fetal position, Eve fell asleep in mere minutes.

-o-

The crying stopped sometime at the beginning of April, and then the nightmares started. After three nights of watching her scream, his name always between pleas of help, he left. He could no longer take the torture of watching her hate him, even in her sleep.

Gabriel went to neighboring villages and towns. Feasting on the herding animals in the Amish community of Intercourse, and haunting the battlefields of Gettysburg for perverse amusement, he became the phantom of his past. He began to again feed on humans again, wanting to feel the calm of human blood running through his dead veins. Never killing them, he promised himself a long time ago he would never murder another human, but leaving them only with their life blood, passed out in alley ways for someone to find.

He moved with the air, deeply breathing the air he didn't need. He felt some of his parts start to stray from the whole, and he quickly reformed. This kept happening, and he couldn't figure out why it was. His body wasn't cooperating with the wind, as it always had. It started the night he followed Eve home for the last time, he had to keep stopping to collect himself before he followed her again.

At least this time he was in the cover of a forest, the last time he had to reform had been in a road, in front of a car, thank goodness no one but the boys in the car were around. He just gave some drunk kids the story of their lifetime, and nothing more.

He floated silently amongst the trees, feeling his atoms wrap around branches and away from him, he reformed. He decided it made more sense to just stay solid for a while. He hadn't relied solely on his broken down self in decades, perhaps he was suffering from overuse. He hoped and started to walk briskly. To any hikers he would appear to be a fast moving deer, or some other large animal, nothing more.

Gabriel stalked the woods, his loneliness absorbed him, and he sulked over his damned existence.


	9. Amor e Morte

Lycanthrope. A disease. Wolf. I am Wolf. I am Predator. I am the Predator, for I am designed to Kill.

-o-

"You have done it a hundred times, another time will not kill you. The younger you seem, the longer we can stay here, and we are needed here, the order has sent us. There is a rouge."

"I know, but it does not make the idea of schooling any more enticing."

"Yes, well, as all of you playing students, we can stay here longer. You know this, now I demand you quit your complaining, it tires me."

"I apologize sir."

"Leave me, I have documents I must fake now to keep us all here. Tell your brothers to pick their classes also, make it easy on them, they are daft."

"Yes sir."

-o-

Eve had groaned through the last parts of her senior year and the annoying additions, like graduation ceremonies, and yearbook signings. She wanted to strangle whomever on the student government committee thought a barbeque on the football field was a grand send off. All she did was lurk under the bleachers to keep the sun off her already burnt shoulders and cheeks.

But it was all over now. Thank goodness. She was officially a student at the local community college and was going to the orientation that day. Her father had gifted her a cute four door something for graduating. She was thankful for the air conditioning as it blew wisps of her hair about on her way to the school. After parking and finally finding the right auditorium, she sat down in the last row away from most everyone else, and took out a small notepad and pen.

-o-

They were late, Faolan glared at his brothers play fighting like morons behind him. He growled a warning and they shut up quickly, after all when Adelphus was gone, he was in control. They snuck into the auditorium and filed past a few other stragglers into the last row as to not disturb the orator.

Ulric proceeded to be ungraceful just to draw some glances his way. His plan worked, two girls giggled in the next row, he winked and plopped down into a chair, slouching considerably, emphasizing his masculinity in his lazy gate and casual stance. Faolan rolled his eyes, Ulric, the youngest of them, was as big as he was, which was a considerable thing, seeing as Faolan was next in line to be leader. The sheer massiveness of Ulric would have been something to worry Faolan, as far as a competitor, but Ulric was too immature and idiotic to ever possibly contend as leader. Faolan was perhaps not as strong, but could out maneuver Ulric in his sleep. Ulric noticed the glare Faolan was burning in his direction. Ulric laughed in response and blew a kiss Faolan's way, his blue eyes twinkling as he shook his mop of sandy blond hair out of his eyes. Faolan growled to himself and pulled out the guidebook for orientation.

Bertolf sighed deeply next to Faolan, giving him a look of pure enervation, him and Faolan were actual brothers, twins to be exact, although nothing alike. Bertolf was much thinner and tired looking. He was ill most of his childhood, and was late to change. He put on muscle, and was as fast as hell, but he could never outshine his intimidating twin brother. Although, different in physique, there was no doubt they were twins. They had the same dusky tan and worn rough hands. They're eyes were the same, although the emotions they wore never were, so an on looker would never really know how similar their eyes really were. They were the same golden brown, and shaded by dark brows. Their ebony colored hair was equally disheveled, but Faolan's looked way past due for a trim, as he idlely blew lanky strands from his angry eyes.

Zeff's deep yawn and cat like stretch caught Faolan's attention. Zeff looked like he was about to pass out, and Faolan wouldn't be surprised if he heard snoring from the kid soon. Faolan nudged Bertolf to signal him to be sure and keep Zeff awake. Zeff nodded reassuringly in Faolan's direction after Bertolf whispered for him to stay awake. Faolan had always had softer feelings toward Zeff, their calmest piece of the pack. Zeff ruffled through his light brown curls with a deeply tanned hand. His big dark brown eyes and long black lashes always made him look like a puppy, even though his impressive size and muscle had most thinking otherwise. He was a perfect flank man, and Faolan's favorite running mate. His thoughts were always calm and warm, even in the heat of a battle, Zeff never failed to be levelheaded and optimistic. Faolan always thought Zeff's positive attitude got them all through hard patches. Zeff held up the note section of his guidebook for Faolan to read, it read "I'm awake, no worries chief,". Faolan chuckled and nodded before turning his attention back to the orator.

"I do not think I can take much more of this." Faolan heard grumbled a few seats over. Faolan glared at his long and intimidating looking brother. Even though to most, the six foot three Ingolfr would look like something out of a Viking painting, Faolan knew better, Vikings had nothing on this formidable brother of his. The thick white blond hair and pale skin did nothing to hide from Ingolfr's very obvious Finnish accent, but his eyes were the real catcher. The once rouge, and adopted son of Adelphus, had lavender eyes, that had a tendency to obtain a red hue when he was feeding, or fighting. Faolan always thought Ingolfr was the true intimidation in their group, he was a fierce and sometimes uncontrollable force. Adelphus has had to hold Ingolfr from fights, just to make sure none of his other boys were hurt in the process. Faolan ignored Ingolfr's protests and went back to writing down the directions the orator provided for applying for classes though the schools website.

"So you girls, maybe we'll have some classes together? Cosmetology? Well, maybe not then. But I could teach you a thing or two, if you want…" Ulric slyly offered sex to the gigglers.

"Ulric, sit up at listen before I snap your neck." Faolan demanded, quietly but with enough intimidation that the two gigglers jerked forward and Ulric sat back without question. Faolan was about to turn his attention back to taking notes when he heard a snicker directly next to him. He snapped his head in the direction of the snicker and saw a girl, nothing special in her plainness, looking at him amused. He raised an eyebrow in response, her eyes played with two emotions, amusement, towards him oddly enough, but also bitterness, something he didn't understand.

"Did I do something funny?" he asked the girl, a rough edge to his voice, he didn't take kindly to being made fun of.

"No, well, yeah, I guess. Everyone reacted so seriously to your threat. Like you were really going to snap that guys neck." she snickered again.

"Oh, that. Well, someone has to keep them in line." Faolan grumbled and went back to his notes.

"Right, okay." the girl shook her black curls back exposing the burnt curves of her otherwise milky white shoulders.

"You should stay out of the sun," Faolan said aloud, and then caught himself, _why should I care?_

"_Uh, yeah thanks for the advice, but you know, I can't really avoid the sun, I'm not a vampire." she said to herself, and then her face turned into an icy slate, the only color on her face was the burn, which looked like an intruding stain upon the girls marble pallor._

"_Hmm, yeah, I guess you aren't, not one of those." he said, just so she could hear a response, even though he knew she wasn't listening. She watched the dramatic change of emotions, her eyes, once humorous and brimming on the sarcastic, were dead now. She knew something, and Faolan intended to find out exactly what that was. _

"_C'mon I'm exhausted, move it or loose it." Zeff kicked Faolan, boot to boot, bringing Faolan back into the moment. He had been staring, trying to read the now dead eyed girl. "This thing is over, let's go home so you can pick our classes."_

_Faolan looked at him with a slight smirk and then got up and filed out of the auditorium past the dead girl. They all looked at her, but she never returned their gazes. Even Ulric was curious as to what had grabbed Faolan's attention so much that he had sat staring at her for the better part of twenty minutes. Faolan wasn't sexually enraptured. She was nothing but an average beauty, nothing to tempt him. She was fragile and weak, biologically the opposite of what he wanted in a mate. But she knew something, something about what brought him to the stupid suburb, and he intended to find out what that was._

_-o-_

_Eve was the last person out of the auditorium and she felt as is she was walking through a breaking wave. She must have a comical gate to her now, the trudging motion of her legs as she made her way to her sedan. Why had she brought up something mystical, anything that she had thought about in the past months to explain away her recent pain. Why did she do it? She just pulled herself into a swirling vortex of depression she thought she was finally getting out of. Maybe she enjoyed soul mutilation. _


	10. The Tension and The Terror

"So you are telling me you think this child knows of our rouge, what proof do you have Faolan?" Adelphus asked roughly, pacing the hard wood floors of his den.

"I have no proof but-" Faolan started.

"No proof? Then why bother me, I am trying to get in touch with the surrounding loners. Do you honestly think I have the time to listen to your suspicions boy?" Adelphus chided.

"Sir, I would not come to you if I didn't think it was meaningful. I understand how precious our time is here." Faolan bowed his head slightly in the direction of his Alpha.

"Then spit it out."

"She laughed at me putting the pups in place, so I countered her interjection. We ended up having an exchange and when I suggested that she avoid the sun, she was burnt you see, she told me she couldn't avoid it because she wasn't a vampire."

"And because some girl you want says the word vampire you think you have a lead?" Adelphus scoffed and moved toward the door to show Faolan out.

"No, and I do not want the human. I believe she knows something because after she said 'vampire' her entire countenance changed. I believe she has had an encounter and knows it. Which would mean the rouge either knows her or knew her, him or another. Either way, she could be of use." Faolan finished through his teeth, angered at the suggestion he would desire such a weak being, even weak for her species.

"It sounds promising then. I trust you not to lead us a stray. Run a stalk on her for a week, if anything comes up we will pursue contact. Tell me what the boys find if they find anything. Now leave, I have calls to make." Adelphus sat at his desk and waved for Faolan to leave as he picked up the phone with his other hand.

Faolan left the office and walked back towards the great room of the large pack quarters they were residing in for the duration of their work here. The other boys were stretched about the room lazily watching television, reading, or snoring in the case of Ulric. Faolan capped Ulric on the side of his head before making his way to the center of the room to shut the T.V. off and grab the packs attention.

"Alright, we have orders. Do you remember the girl in the orientation auditorium earlier today?"

"The one you were bugging out on for an hour? Yeah what's up, she give you your first hard on?" Ulric scoffed.

Faolan growled audibly while baring teeth, and Ulric tilted his head slightly knowing his jest had crossed invisible barriers.

"She may be our lead for the rouge, she mentioned the word vampire and I was analyzing her reaction, she definitely knows something." Faolan said barring his eyes into the pack to see if anyone else would test his authority, no contesters. "Adelphus agrees and he wants us to run a stalk on the human. So, because I am the only one to have focused on her thus far I will find her scent in town, if I find her place I can get her information so each of us can get into one of her classes. After that we will do a pursuit stalk and find out if she knows anything."

Everyone nodded in unison and Faolan left to start tracking the human girl who could be the means of an end to this whole hunt.

-o-

Eve got home to a sink full of dishes and three messages on the answering machine. Apparently her Father wanted her to meet him at the diner by his job for dinner tonight to hear about orientation. With him working nights at the E.R. she never had time to talk to him, and ever since her sudden behavior change in the spring he made an extra effort to be part of her life. She went upstairs to her room and got undressed for a shower and get ready to meet her father. After getting ready she headed out to her car, she shivered slightly as she put the keys in the driver's side door, she had grown very paranoid since March but she distinctly felt eyes on her. She took a quick glance around and after seeing no one she shrugged it off and left for the diner.

-o-

It took a little under two hours to find her den. Faolan was an expert tracker and her scent was surprisingly pungent, and very near the school. When he reached her residence he lurked in the trees surrounding her home because she was leaving as he was arriving. He watched her go before checking out the place to make sure she wasn't going to go back inside for anything. Her tiny two bedroom home was quaint but looked like it was falling into disrepair as he analyzed the grounds for any signs of his rouge. None really, maybe something faint but her scent radiated from the top floor and he knew if she had any contact with it, the proof would be there. The sun was going to set soon, and due to the lowness of the trees in relation to the windows of the next house he decided to linger in the bushes for darkness before shifting and going up to her room.

-o-

Darkness fell and he changed into his skin with the ease of skill and practice. He climbed the drainpipe swiftly and reached her window. He inhaled and his head spun. The sill reeked of the dead, or rather the perfumed sweet stench of the undead. It had been here, at her window. Stalking her perhaps? He didn't notice the thing's smell on the girl when he sat next to her this morning, so she couldn't be its lover, if they had such things. He made quick work of the window's lock, knowing the moon shone high and the idea of a large naked man crouched on the sill of a teenage girl's room is something to call the authorities over. He climbed inside her room and was assaulted with her scent. It was a comforting thing, something he rarely experienced in humans, like flowers and slumber. She had just showered, the hair brush on her vanity still radiated the scent of her shampoo and the clothes she had sweat in that day were discarded on the floor, pumping out a scent that was too comforting for Faolan's liking.

He started to look on her desk at the papers she had of the classes she chose for the up coming semester. He took a mental note of each and their times, chuckling at himself about assigning Ulric the calculus class. He then began to open her desk drawers and shuffle through other paper work and stumbled upon drawings. He leafed through them and halted his casualness when he saw a distinct depiction of his mortal enemy.

The growl rumbled from his wide chest without him even trying, as the ancient change twisted his spine in ingrained knowing. The charcoal drawing showed a male, young, and seemingly large, light haired perhaps, and winged. He committed it all to memory to relay back to Adelphus and then set it back where it was, all the while the blood rang as it rushed in his head, he had found a great lead.

-o-

It had been a short and very silent dinner. It always was these days, it seemed Eve had nothing really to say. She chided herself for not making a larger effort to make conversation with her Dad as she parked in front of her house and walked into the house, slamming the door louder than she intended in her mental preoccupation.

-o-

Faolan's head snapped towards the door when he heard the slam. Then he began to launch himself towards the window as his sensitive ears picked up the sound of her steps, he then saw the neighbors on their balcony looking this way, and the bedroom light was on.

"Fuck." he whispered to himself.

If they haven't already seen him it would be a miracle. He stepped inside her closet, shutting the slated wooden doors closed as she came inside her room. She stopped dead in the middle of the room, looked around with a curious look on her face and shrugged. Faolan noted she noticed a difference, surprised her senses were so in tune for a human. She went to her window and pulled the blue drapes closed upon seeing the neighbors on their balcony looking her way. She then kicked her dirty clothes into a pile in the center of her room as she pulled off her black tank dress and tossed it with the other things in the pile while kicking her shoes off. Faolan mentally groaned as he watched what he had mistakenly taken as a plain human girl brandish her very womanly body to him without her knowing. She undressed further, exposing her entire body in his direction and he swallowed her whole with his eyes, feeling his blood charge through him at the site of her. She reached for the night dress on her vanity stool and pulled it on, covering her beautiful body to Faolan's dismay. She sighed as she gathered up her clothes and walked from her room to take it down to what Faolan presumed was the laundry.

He waited a mere second before bolting for the window, neighbors or not. He had the information he needed, and he had to get out of there before any truly dangerous happened.


	11. The Lion Eats His Fill and Then

He was in her closet again. Watching her sleep, her breasts falling and rising rhythmically with each in take of breath. She sighed in her sleep, causing Faolan to tighten his fists in restraint from his closet haven.

She ran a hand up her neck, to swipe her ebony curls away, the room was warm and she was starting to react to the heat in her slumber. She started to twist in bed, whispering something in a raspy voice that purred into his ears. The words didn't matter to him, just the lure of her voice. She had managed to kick her comforter away, displaying long alabaster legs, her silk camisole night dress hiked around her round hips.

Faolan felt the small drop of sweat tickle a teasing trail down his spine and his legs began to tremble with the need to move to her. He quietly opened the closet door and stealthy moved to the foot of her queen sized bed. He placed a single knee and both hands on the mattress, poised like a cat before the pounce. Seeing that she didn't wake, he applied his weight to the mattress, pressing his hands into its softness, causing it to release a dense concentrated version of her scent which made his head spin wildly and his to blood rage.

He began to crawl towards her until he was looming above her sleeping form on all fours. Her eyes fluttered open and she gazed into his face with a puzzled expression, a line forming between her brows. He slowly took a hand and placed it on the side of her beautiful face and used his thumb to relax the worried crease. He ran his hand down her face to her neck until he met her breast, a perfect fit to his palm. He bent down to kiss her sighs as her stroked her hard nipple.

He supported her head with his other hand and pressed his chest into hers, his hand now moving to grasp her ample tail. She welcomingly opened her legs and proceeded to wrap her long legs around his hips. She explored his muscled back with her light touches and then rested her hands on his butt, her legs having left his hips to caress his own. Her kisses became more fevered and he heard himself moan into her mouth as she drug his hips nearer to her warm core.

He was aroused and ready and she warm and willing as he entered her and heard her moan his name in pleasure. He lifted himself up to look at her as he slowly thrust into her hot body. She placed her arms above her head, displaying her now bare breasts to their fullest potential as she lustfully gazed up at him, a smile of pure pleasure on her gorgeous face.

Faolan was near his peak, and by her sounds he knew was too. He then heard laughing, high pitched and sinister. The mocking noises were coming from the window, and Faolan was prepared to tear the peeping tom to shreds for ruining his moment with her. He looked to the window and to his utter horror he saw the smiling pale demon perched on the window sill.

"Faolan don't stop I need you…" he heard her say, but it sounded muffled and far away and nothing like her as he gazed at the pulled and crazed faced of the rouge vampire. The thing's eyes were fully black, ready to hunt, with an innocent's blood dripping from its mocking sneer. It threw its head back and laughed before its tainted mouth formed his name.

"Faolan…Faolan….FAOLAN!" and then a sharp smack met his ass and he jolted from the bed.

Faolan's face felt sticky has he wiped the drool from his jowls.

"Holy shit whoever you just dream fucked must have been good with the amount of moaning this whole house just heard… was it me?" Ulric batted his eyelashes and ducked quickly as Faolan lunged for him.

"Haha, chill you big baby you have to get your horny little ass to school."

"Little? I'll kill you." Faolan grumbled as he pulled a white T-shirt on.

"And quite firm I might add. Been running more? I can tell, I feel like I just smacked a rock." Ulric laughed and tousled Faolan's shaggy dark mane of bed head before scampering off to annoy someone else.

Faolan got his things together and walked out to his car. He got into the old mustang and revved up the loud engine. The car, accompanied with the screams of his new favorite metal band, were enough to block the memories of the dream from his mind. The reoccurring nature of the dream was nothing he could complain about, he just couldn't understand why his subconscious was choosing her, a weak human girl that drew the attention of a vampire.

-o-

Eve was running late to English Lit. She liked the class enough not to skip it, but the heat had her wishing she had stayed in her air conditioned room. Her first few weeks of classes were boring and uneventful. The only thing about college that differed from high school was the strange amount of male attention she was getting. It wasn't every guy, just a select few, one in each of her classes, that just stared at her constantly. It was beginning to get very strange, not because they appeared creepy, they were all very handsome actually, it was just strange to her that that none of the five that have been staring her down these past few weeks had bothered to talk to her at all.

She reached the room as the teacher was beginning the lecture and took a seat by the door, conveniently right next to this classes' "stare-er" . He was definitely the most intense of them all. His stare looked more critical, and at first she thought she must have wronged him in some way, until she realized that was just the way his face was or something, angry. She remembered the guy from orientation awhile back and knew he had wicked temper, she just couldn't understand why he would point those hard eyes at her.

-o-

Faolan was about to ditch, thinking that the girl had, when as he began to rise she walked through the door in a tight yellow sundress. Why did it matter what she was wearing? He mentally berated himself. He took a deep breadth when she sat next to him, trying to pick up any vampire traces on her. None. He felt relieved, he shouldn't have. If the girl smelt like it he would have a stronger lead, but as of now the girl was all the pack had to go on. He saw her look at him apprehensively as she slowly took her seat.

The Professor handed out copies of "A Handmaidens Tale", this professor was annoyingly feministic, and her views seeped into every aspect of her teaching. Most of the guys savvied up those first few weeks and dropped the class, or switched it for another professor when they caught wind of a feminist getting ready to burn her metaphorical bra at any given time, and Faolan would normally have done the same if he wasn't in here for another reason aside from the 3 credit hours. He sighed dramatically when the teacher handed him the novel, and he tried to suppress his smirk when he saw her fume at his reaction to her selected reading.

In his peripheral vision he watched the girl throughout the class, she thumbed quickly through the book and then sat it on the desk upside down and picked up her pen. The remainder of the class trudged on, and mostly consisted of Faolan staring at her tapping her pen on the desk, rolling her eyes, and then chewing on the end of the same pen, all the while he undressed her in his head which led him to mentally berating himself, and then the cycle would begin again.

-o-

Eve grabbed up her things quickly once the Professor had given the class the go ahead to leave. She played a balancing game as she tried to shrug on her purse, juggle books and papers, and place her chewed up pen back into the front pocket of her bag and kick the slightly ajar classroom door open. Faolan reached over the girls head without blinking an eye and in a single flick of the wrist threw the door completely open as he moved the strap of the girls purse to her shoulder with his other hand, making sure he grazed his finger up her arm as he placed the strap where it belonged.

Once outside the door Eve looked back to thank the civil servant who helped her one woman train wreck get out of the door. When she turned her head she got an eye full of her well muscled fan with the angry eyes. "Thanks for that." she mumbled out as she hurried a little faster down the hall, for a reason she could really understand.

"No problem." she heard the annoyed reply calling after her. The low grumble that was his voice sent a shiver down her spine, she couldn't quite decide if it was fear or something a little more that caused her tremble when he spoke.


	12. The Wolf Cleans Up The Mess

It was the natural way of things. Magnets are charged and drawn to their opposites. The tormented are almost always drawn back to their tormentors, and like a moth to the flame, the criminal almost always revisit's the scene of the crime.

Gabriel found himself sitting atop a lamp post that was familiar to him. His mind was detached and his feet were phantom limbs that brought him back to his hearts old stomping grounds. Apparently, his mind had not left him like he thought, because his sub conscious had managed to control his actions and sent him back to the one place he was trying to avoid.

He had only been back in to the town Eve lived in for a few hours, but it felt like a lifetime already. With every step he was drawing himself closer and closer to her bedroom window even after he had promised himself that he would give it a few days before looking in on her again, so as to prepare himself for the permanent damage he knew he had caused the poor girl to become a reality to him. He finally stopped the pilgrimage to heartache when he had reached the lamp post where it had all began for him. A fateful night almost a year ago he saved the most perfect and beautiful creature from her demise, only to fall in love and then destroy her, because of what he was.

He was a Vampire.

-o-

The rest of the week Eve's thoughts kept returning the frustrated rumble she heard from down the hall the day the angry boy helped her from making her calculus notes a new carpet in the English corridor. She couldn't shake his voice or him from her mind. So much so he started to now invade her dreams. She had eventually decided that it wasn't fear but attraction that led her to make him the leading man in her mental fantasies. It had been a long while since she had felt any sort of sexual attraction toward anyone, she thought herself permanently scarred in that avenue, but as to keep her mind from exploring the motivation for that she shook her head and walked into her English Lit. class.

Naturally, he was there and his head snapped to her the minute she walked into the room. She decided that pretense was damnable and if he had the notion to stare at her for a month she could ask him why. Eve dropped her bag on the floor and sat right next to him. The professor hadn't come in yet and there was about another ten minutes before the class officially began, there was only another three people in the room, one of which was napping, another reading and the other having a fevered discussion on his blackberry by judge of the rapid rate in which his thumbs tapped the tiny keys. Eve turned to the man and smiled, he didn't smile back but didn't break the locked gaze that lingered between them.

"I hate this class." she said instead of hello.

"Me too." he offered instead of why.

"I am going to ditch it." she hadn't planned that, but why not?

"Oh really?" his eyebrow perked upwards, wondering if this were an invitation or her asking him to mark the attendance sheet for her so it would show her being there.

"Follow me out of here if you want." she wondered where the bold attitude came from suddenly, and then she realized that it had nothing to do with being bold and everything to do with no longer caring what happened to her. Eve got up and grabbed her bag and walked out of the classroom, the guy close on her heels.

-o-

Faolan wasn't quite sure why he was following her, or what her sudden motivation was for speaking to him, or why she would want him to follow her. The entire situation had certainly caught him off guard. His mind began to take a more sinister turn, perhaps she had had contact with the Vampire again and was intending to lead him to the things lair, it was unlikely seeing as it was mid morning and he knew the thing would die if the sun touched him, but he wasn't beyond suspicion.

The paranoid after thought started to fester into an actual formed idea, so he decided to draw a little aid his way just incase he needed it. What would appear to be only the clenching of fists and the popping of a few vertebra was actually something so ancient and secret that most mortals could not even begin to conceive. Hair bristled down Faolan's spine as his claws grew minutely and his eyes turned the most delicate hue of gold, instead of their usual warm brown. He stared at the carpeting as he made his way down the corridors behind the girl, his shoulders hunching slightly as an ancient force made his muscles twist and his bones grind. No one outside of his own kind would notice a change in his physic in that moment, they would just assume he had a moody stride and would dismiss his countenance as nothing more.

A thought flickered across his mind that wasn't his. Smells of a damp forest alerted his senses, even though he was still inside a building, and miles from anything that would produce that aroma. Another thought crossed his mind, this one a questioning one. Faolan thought his name into his mind. A thought answered 'Zeff' and was accompanied with warm awareness and brotherhood. Zeff must be in a good mood.

'I am, good lunch.' an inner voice not belonging to Faolan answered inside of his head. The thought was followed with a warming sensation in Faolan's belly and the false feeling of being very full of food. Then a feeling of confusion filled Faolan's mind, Zeff's to be exact, because he knew Zeff felt that Faolan wasn't fully changed and inside a building with humans.

Faolan saw that he and the girl were nearing the door and that a conversation would soon follow about their intended destination, with which she would be met with suddenly sharpened teeth. The change was advancing the longer he lingered in between forms, so he hurried a thought to Zeff.

'The target of our stalk has made contact and leading me away from the school, incase she has had contact with the demon I would like you to alert whomever you can to try and keep close to me for the next couple of hours so if I need aid they're not far.'

Once Faolan felt the clicked gears of understanding and the cold submissive assurance of an order taken, he flicked his head a bit and rolled his shoulders. He was human again.

"Okay, so I actually didn't plan on ditching, my rebellion went a little unplanned." she smiled coyly at him and folded her arms as they both lingered by the door leading to potential.

"Hmm, well, I'm hungry, if you are." he said, his voice a little rougher than he was expecting, and after effect of his balancing act between worlds. He didn't realize he was starving until after the feeling of Zeff's lunch left his mind.

"I guess we could go get food then. I have a couple hours until me next class now." she shrugged. "Do you know where you want to go?"

"Yeah, I'll drive." he made long strides towards his mustang.

"I'm Eve, by the way." she mumbled to his back as she struggled to keep up.

"Faolan."

"That's different isn't it." she wondered its origin.

"Ah, I guess, I know more unique. My brother's name is Bertolf." he suddenly got frustrated with himself not knowing why he was giving her information about himself.

"Hey, I know him! Well, I don't know him per say, he is in my Western Civ. Class later today. You guys don't look a lot a like to be brothers. Are you older?"

"We're twins, we have the same coloring I'm just a lot bigger, but we do look a lot a like." He looked back at her and motioned toward his car and told her it was unlocked as he got in and started the engine.

"I guess now that you mention it, anyway." she looked out the window as he peeled out of the parking lot and made his way downtown. "Why are you always staring at me?" better go for broke.

Faolan gave her a sideways glance as his smirk set in, he thought he had been mildly subtle with the staring. "You notice that huh?"

"Yes." she waited for his explanation.

"Uhm, I don't really know if I want to answer that, or if I can, you interest me I guess."

"In what way." fuck it, subtle word games were beyond her patience now.

He laughed in response and shrugged not really wanting to tell her the truth but he had a uncharacteristic tug at his morals not to lie either. He settled for a half truth, and covered the real reason why he was keeping a close eye on her.

"I had a dream where I had sex with you, not that I thought of you like that before, don't get me wrong, you have killer legs and all but I just tend to have a different type. Anyway, since then its been more fun to pass the time in faux Fem. Lit. looking at you than it is to actually read that bullshit that lady gives us."

"Well, that was…blunt." she looked out the window to hide her blush and unconsciously tugged at the hem of her sundress to cover her exposed "killer legs".

He laughed profusely at her embarrassment and turned up the stereo as he flied now the streets weaving between cars.

-o-

Eve watched him scarf down the burger and fries in record time as she nursed her soda. She didn't really eat a whole lot lately and didn't think she would have had the time even if she had ordered anything. Once he was done and paid for the tab, which included her drink, they walked out to be met with an even hotter afternoon.

"Dear god isn't it supposed to cool off later in the day?" Faolan said in frustration as he glared up at the sun directly burning into the back of his head.

"Not is hell." she answered sarcastically and walked back to his car opening the door and cautiously sat on the scorching leather seat.

He followed suit, minus the caution and blasted the AC along with the stereo.

"Back to school so you can go get your learn on?" He raised an eyebrow in her direction.

"No, its too hot to think any more today, can you just take me home?"

"Don't need to pick up a car at the school?" He asked, idling at a stop sign waiting for her go ahead.

"I took the bus today for variation, it's a new hobby, doing different things to break the monotony, so because I've already driven every possible route to school from my house I've now resorted to different forms of transportation." she leaned her head back to feel the cool air that was jetting through the tiny vents on her neck. He took advantage of the angle to quickly scan her pale skin for bite marks of moon shaped scars, nothing.

"Has anyone alerted you to your strangeness?" he smiled and stepped on the gas after she told him the neighborhood to drop her off at.

"Daily, via parental worry." she said matter a factly.

He spared her glances as his eight cylinders tore up the newly paved roads leading to her block. He stopped at the house she told him to and turned the volume down on the stereo, watching her get out of the low sitting car, smiling to himself when he got a tiny glance at her lacy panties as she got out.

Before she slammed the door shut and could wave goodbye he called after her and went for the big guns. He was sick and watching and waiting and decided action was the order of the day.

"Hey! Busy tomorrow night?"

"Nope, why?" she asked half heartedly.

"There is a band showing not far from campus, I don't really know their music that well but its free to get in and domestics are cheap as shit."

"Sure, when is it?"

"Starts at seven, I can get you at six thirty ya think?"

"Yeah sounds fine. Bye." she closed the door with a pathetic amount of force and made her way to the front door of her house.

He watch he make her way inside of the house swinging her hips slightly as she walked and how she jutted her hip out to balance her books as she unlocked the door with her free hand.

"Is that the real reason you wanted us to follow you all afternoon? To see you can land pussy on the job? You're awesome broski. You know, they were showing a marathon of America's Next Top Model today, I could have been doing something productive for fucks sake." Ulric smiled through Faolan's open driver's side window, having shown up instantly after Eve went inside.

"Productive? Like rubbing one out to stick people?" Faolan roared the engine as a hint for Ulric to get in the car if he wanted a ride home. He took the hint and jumped in the car as Faolan peeled out of the drive and down the street.

"Yeah, well, I like skinny bitches." Ulric hung his head out of the window and opened his mouth like a dog on a joyful car ride. He snapped his head back in and his face turned to complete seriousness. "Woah, dude though, you're not planning sticking it where that dead thing did are you?" the grin almost instantly broke his composure.

"I am going to kill you in your sleep." Faolan started straight ahead, honestly questioning whether or not he was going to fraternize with a Vampire's play thing tomorrow night.


	13. The Weather of the Winter's on its Way

It was six-thirty on Friday and Eve tugged at the hem of her black tank dress in front of her full length mirror. The dress was some kind of synthetic blend that clung to her body like an extra layer of skin. She normally would have donned tights or stockings with it so she didn't feel so naked, but the temperature lately had her repel the idea of an extra layer. So she examined and admired her reflection. She wasn't a self centered person, and more often than not she felt self-conscious of her appearance, but she couldn't find anything wrong with what was staring back at her in the mirror. She paired the tiny dress with black closed in pumps that laced in the front to her ankle, the classic design juxtaposed the teeny modern ensemble nicely. He hair hung long and loose around her, almost as dark as her dress, and her makeup was minimal but she put on bright pink blush and peach tinted chap stick.

Right as she was dashing one last swipe of her blush brush across her cheek she heard a honk from right outside her house. She grabbed her house key from off her desk and pushed it down to the bottom of her laced up heels, she would have normally put it in her bra but the thin razor back of the dress kept her from wearing one, and the thin tight fabric left her sans panties. It always made her feel a little more bold and adventurous when she went without underwear, even if she was the only one privy to it. She made it down the stairs and locked the front door behind her and she made long confident strides to his low sitting muscle car. She felt wildly at ease with this dangerous man, maybe devastating pain makes you feel invincible or maybe it kept you from checking yourself, either way she decided to go for broke.

-o-

Faolan's jaw became slack at the site of her alabaster legs as they made movements his way. He could slow the vision of her gate in his mind, watching the long lean muscles of a woman who enjoyed frequent jogs flex and stretch. It was an easy trail for his eyes to make as he moved down her legs to see the stilettos and then surveyed the curve her surprisingly ample ass made in reaction to the sexy shoes.

He almost audibly sighed as she made a cautious decent into the car and shut the door, this time she was careful and he wasn't able to get an eyeful of anything but upper thigh, but that was satisfying in itself.

"Hey there, that dress was a good choice, I'm not going to be able to keep my eyes off of you now." He admitted.

"Hey yourself, and that was the plan." She smirked.

He felt his pulse quicken and a rush of blood hit a few key areas as he emitted a low rumble of a laugh.

-o-

He stepped on the gas and they were at the venue as the sun began to sink. Faolan got out of the car and was out and at her door quick enough to take her hand and close her door for her. He was clad in dark, but well worn, jeans that accented his long and well toned legs. Faolan paired the jeans with black scuffed work boots and a faded navy t-shirt, whose seems was straining across his biceps, there was no doubt he had an amazingly masculine body, which paired his almost pretty long dark locks in a cute way.

Faolan's strides were long enough that it was difficult for Eve to keep up, so she was a couple of steps behind him, even as he kept his fingers entwined with hers. They made it in through the door and were met with the loud cacophony of the rock band on stage. He corralled her to the bar and asked for a pitcher of some kind of beer she'd seen lingering in the fridge at her house a time or two. After he took the pitcher and the plastic Dixie cups that accompanied it they found a high table and stood next to one another facing the stage. He poured her a cup and handed it to her, his eyes staying on the stage. He downed his in three swigs and poured another.

-o-

By the time the opening band's set ended they were down two pitchers between them, and while the first went largely to him and his fast speed, she was able to down a great deal of the second on her own and she was feeling the light headed disorientation of a good buzz. She'd gotten drunk a few times in high school with Abby, but hadn't really built up the tolerance of a man Faolan's size.

The main band was decent however Eve found herself paying more attention to Faolan's rugged good looks and chiseled arms than to the music. When they took a break of their unknown music they did a decent cover of Pearl Jam's "Even Flow" and Faolan new all the words, at one point in the song he turned his head back to look at her and he stuck out his tongue as she giggled for no apparent reason. At one point she reached up to tuck a lock of his long dark hair behind his ear and planted a wet friendly Budweiser kiss on his cheek. He laughed allowed in response and turned her in a circle as the faux Eddy Vedder screamed "Thoughts occur like butterflies", he pulled her back end to press into his groin as her swayed her hips with his hands and buried his face into the concave of her throat. He felt the vibrations of her laughter hum along the soft skin of her neck as his lips grazed her there. She smelt intoxicating and her care free attitude made him almost forget why he wanted to take her out on a date. The contact, he knew that if he could get his finely tuned nose this close to her he would know if she'd really known the demon.

He tried to mask the minute disappointment of not smelling Vampire in her blood. He could only smell lilac, sweat, and what could only be described as maple syrup. The disappointment that his lead to the vampire was slowly becoming useless faded quickly as he felt her respond to their dance with more pressure to his loins and a slight grinding of her pelvis. The band had switched to cover "Danni California" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and he could feel himself begin to enjoy the way she was rubbing her body against his a tad too much. As he tried to collect himself and remind himself that she is nothing but a means to an end, she turned her face up and to the side to meet his gaze. He looked down at her and saw the seductive smile of the mildly intoxicated as she ran her fingers down the length of his shaggy dark hair to make a trail to his chin. She gripped her fingers about his lower and jaw and with little effort drew his mouth to hers.

-o-

His lips were warm and eager once she planted them squarely on hers and he took no time to react to her bold move. He slipped his hot tongue into her mouth aggressively as his hands explored her torso a little more thoroughly. She responded with equal vigor, and what she hoped was equal skill and intensity. He nipped her bottom lip and then sucked on it before going back into their deep kiss, and she would have been a little more ashamed if the music hadn't been so loud because he would have heard her moan in response to that little move.

She could feel something aside from his hands pressing into her and she pulled away with a laugh and took a sip of her beer for some confidence. The thing pressing into her was enough to make any minor leaguer feel a little worried about now playing in the majors with the big boys. He must of read her discomfort she thought with regret because he took his hands off her hips and leaned around her to put his elbow on the high table and threw back the remainder of his beer. He grabbed the plastic pitcher and made his way back the bar for what must be the fourth time as the band played Ever clear's "Father of Mine", the whole audience was bobbing up and down to the 90's favorite and she laughed to herself realizing everyone there was probably in sixth grade when the song hit the charts.

-o-

Faolan made his way back and topped off her Dixie cup. They met one another in cups from the final pitcher as the band made their bows and exited the stage. Faolan returned the plastic pitcher to the bar and threw away cups they had used. He took Eve about the waist and held her against him as he guided her back to his car.

"Did you like the band?" he asked as he put the key in the passenger door she was leaning against, enabling him to open it and ease her in, she was a little more drunk than he meant to allow her to get but she seemed to be having a good enough time with it and was by no means plastered and annoying.

"It was great, I had a lot of fun with you." she smiled a big white smile up at him poking him in the chest to emphasize the 'you'.

"Going to let me open this door for you?" he grinned coyly down at her.

"Nope, you have to pay a fine to go through the door." that didn't make sense she thought to herself, she giggled and winked up at him. Faolan saw that the beer had effected the girl way more than the acute buzz he felt swimming happily in his head.

"What's the tax, hmm?" he pressed her into the car with his body, his hands on the roof caging her in.

She tapped her puckered lips as she smiled with her eyes up at him. He almost threw his head back laughing when instead he decided to oblige her.

He laid his mouth hard on hers and rested one hand at the base of her neck, running his thumb along her collar bone. She managed to snake her tongue into his mouth biting his lip to grant herself entry.

Eve thought that this boy was a grade A kisser, and she could stand her all night running her hands down the muscles that laid over his ribcage. As they continued to deeply kiss and taste one another she felt a rumble occur deep within his broad chest and omit in a stifled moan, which could have been translated to something like a growl. She responded without thinking with a tense sigh. His hands left their exploration of her face and hair and landed sharply on her ass, squeezing and dragging her pelvis to press into his. Somewhere in the back of her head a memory of Abby talking about this older guy she'd been pining over at her job and she had commented casually that she would bet money on him being a "veteran fuck", Eve thought that she would bet money Faolan was also coined a "veteran fuck". The unofficial title had Eve breaking their kiss with a laugh. Faolan's ragged breathing above her made her giggle more, when she realized why his breathing was labored.

She heard the nearby 'woop, woop' of the venue security trying to get everyone to vacate the parking lot. Eve reached behind her and opened up the door and slinked into the car with a grace that astounded her considering how drunk she felt. Faolan stood there on her side bracing himself with his hands on the roof of the Mustang before he rustled up the sense to walk to the drivers side, adjusting his erection on the way.

They talked about the bands and what they liked and disliked about the show as he made his way to her house. It was late and he wanted to make sure to not awake her Father to his drunk daughter returning home, so he cut the engine and coasted into the driveway shutting off the head lights before facing the front of the house.

"Well, that was fun, you're a lot of fun." he leaned his head back on the rest, squeezing her upper thigh in a friendly way before returning his hand to the wheel.

"Come inside." she almost bit it back, she wasn't acting like herself at all tonight, and she wondered when the dirty stain of regret would begin to creep along her sunny disposition.

"Don't you live with your Father, he probably wouldn't like the sight of his daughter bringing home a guy who looks like me." He laughed, knowing he looked like anything but the wholesome type.

"He isn't home, and won't be, he's on call at the ER, I am always home alone on Fridays." She didn't know where this nerve was coming from, why did she feel like it was a safe and good idea to take this man she hardly knew into her home, up to her room? She did, or at least a very alarming part of her anatomy did.

"Well, shit. Why not?" don't fratinize with the enemy. The thought made an strong appearance in the fore front of his mind, but then he saw that the blasting car AC had brought out the fact she wasn't wearing a bra and he decided to ignore caution.

He pocketed the keys and followed her in through the front door and up the stairs to the bedroom she had no clue he'd already been in. The second they were in the room and the door clicked shut behind them he spun her to face him and planted his mouth on hers and raveshed her in a kiss. His hands snaked down her hips and up her skirt in the matter of a moment and he gripped her bare bottom and the realization she was without undies tonight caused him to whimper in the back of his throat. He picked her up by the grip he had on her bottom and she wrapped her legs arround his hips and she explored his mouth thoroughly.

The air was nearly knocked out of Eve when Faolan tossed her onto her bed with abandon and he was on top of her before she could even realize what had happened. His hands were on her hips as he rocked his pelvis into her, the rough fabric of his jeans caressing the most sensitive parts of her as she became increasingly aware that her dress was hiked up around her waist.

Faolan's hands traveled up to her dark curls pulling tight as his fingers wound into their soft web. He took one hand from her hair to trail down her face as he broke their kiss to look down at her. She turned her mouth to bite and then suck on the tip of his thumb after he used it to brush her bottom lip, he responded with a rougher and heavier grind of the fly of his jeans on her clit and she tried to stifle a little cry of pleasure. He started to kiss her again allowing his hands to grab at her perky, apple sized breasts through her dress.

Eve pulled at his shirt, Faolan broke their kiss and rose himself up to pull his tshirt over his head. She whispered a little "holy shit" under her breath at the sight of him. Every muscle that a man can posses was on a perfect display in front of her. His olive complextion and six pack nearly made her purr with satisfaction and he made a cocky grin before returning his mouth to hers. She ran her hands every which way she could over his smooth hard body, feeling her core vibrate in response to all the testosterone.

She gasped when she felt his fingers run over the soft skin that would normally be donning panties, and she moaned allowed as he massaged her in the very place she was throbbing for his touch. He put his mouth on her neck and started to deeply suck on the sensitive skin there, leaving his mark on her ivory throat as he slipped his fingers inside of her.

Faolan groaned against her neck when he could feel how wet she was for him, and he began to throb more intensely for her. He thrust his fingers back in forth feeling her writhe against his touch. Her breath caught his her throat before she moaned louder and her hands pulled roughly at his hair. She was lifting and pressing her hips into him and his name was whisper on the ragged breaths that were exiting her mouth. He pulled his fingers out of her to fumble with his fly, having to feel himself inside of her.

It was like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water on her in that moment she realized that he was no longer pressing against her though his jeans but that his very large and erect friend had just touched her thigh.

"Wait." she said, stone cold sober.

"Baby, I don't know if I can." He breathed into her ear, grabbing her breast in his hand, using the other to pull the fabric back so he could take her hard nipple in his mouth a tug, hard. She moaned loudly and moved her body against him in such a seductive way he had to muster all of his control not to grab her by the hips right then and thrust into her.

"Wait, please, I…" she grabbed him by the face and forced him to look into her eyes. "I've never… I'm a.. uhm." she strugged to let him know she had never had sex with anyone and the last person who had come close to her in that way had broken her heart and sanity.

"You've never had a one night stand, oh baby don't worry about that I'll come back more than once." he went to kiss her again but she stopped him. Faolan gazed into her wide eyes, his grin diminishing. "Oh, fuck, really? You've never had sex."

"No." her voice but a peep, and a deep and beautiful crimson blush began to creep across her alabaster skin.

"Don't be embarrassed, I am only shocked because, well, you're good at this." He laughed a little and then kissed her lightly and sweetly to show her he didn't think any less of her.

"I just don't think I want to, I mean I want to, but you know…" she felt like a jerk for having led him on, but the sudden realization that the matter had become alittle more high stakes had her scared.

"I get it." he said with a slight smile, trying very hard to disguise his severe disappointment. "can I do something instead of fucking you?" he raised an eyebrow and looked almost boyish that Eve had to giggle.

"What's that?" she questioned uneasily.

"Tell me to stop of you don't like it." his boyish grin turned sinister as he pushed her whole body up the mattress with ease. He kissed her hip bones and the slightly raised pubic mound of her low pelvis before resting his mouth where his fingers had only too resently been. He kissed her deeply there and she rocked her pelvis into his kiss gripping the railings of her iron headboard as she cried out.

Eve was inexperienced and the dawning of what she missed out on had her fleetingly wish she'd been a slut way before this, her laugh at her realization was caught on a moan as Faolan sucked hard on her intimately and she gripped her own breasts and screamed his name. He moaned into her wet core letting her know he liked it too, and she dived her hands into his thick hair trying to force him closer.

Eve pulled his head away from her, "Kiss me now." she breathed and he moved up her body to begin ravishing her mouth with his own and she tasted herself on his tongue. She grabbed for his hard on and stroked roughly up and down as he growled into their kiss. She kept going applying pressure and speed and he broke their kiss to peer down between their bodies so he could both see and feel what she was doing to him.

"You, you're great, ugh fucking perfect." he panted, his hands grabbing at every part of her.

Faolan felt himself change minutely, a small pop of his spine, a tiny growth of fang as he allowed her to turn him over unto his back so she could have her try at tasteing. Faolan growled out his moan as she took him into her mouth and sucked on the tip of his erection with an alarmingly perfect amount of pressue. She was rough and confident and perfect as he felt his spine shudder with an on coming climax. A claw retracted and snagged at Eve's sheets. He knew she would never notice as he felt his sense of smell sharpen, and the grip of changing muscle tug across his back. He felt a wind in the room, it wasn't really, it was a warm summer breeze across a field, and he could smell the fresh breakage of tall grasses on the wind. Someone else from his pack was in his head, but he didn't even have time to know who it was as he neared his climax.

He warned Eve that he was going to cum, and she moved up his body and kissed him deeply as she finished him with her hands. He knew that whoever was in their pelt right now just got a happy surprise while out on their run, and he laughed to himself as he grabbed at her dress and finally pulled it off of her. Faolan's animal nature clicked back to being human as he grabbed Eve and pulled her down to the mattress next to him. He nuzzled her neck as his heart rate steadied, and he licked the beading sweat dewing on her neck.

She giggled and patted his head. Faolan looked up at her with a smile.

"Oh that's a wolfish grin if I've ever seen one."

_You can't even begin to realize how wolfish I can be._


	14. Falling Away With You

Gabriel floated along the perimeter of her home, swiping at the blood running down his cheeks. He knew he had no right to be upset at seeing the man holding her while she slept, of smelling the sex that tinted the air around her window. He knew he had no claim on her and that she had no interest in allowing him to be the man that held her while she slept. But all of those thoughts couldn't quell the swelling rage and self loathing that ravaged his soul.

He knew the sun was going to rise very soon, he could see the once inky black sky begin to lighten slightly with purples and grays. In that moment he decided he'd meet the sun and let himself be damned, but the thought was fleeting as the fear and regret loomed over him. He stood in the front of the house and he berated his own cowardice as blood tears streaked his white face.

-o-

Faolan stared at the ceiling fully awake and shockingly aware of the nude girl curled next to him emitting the deep rhythmic breathing of sleep. He rose from the bed and crawled over her and hopped off the bed in an easy and graceful motion. He secured his boxers as he scoured the floor for his t-shirt. After locating the rest of his clothing and quickly tugging them on he walked over to her vanity and picked up her lipstick and scrawled his number across the mirror there. He decided against kissing her goodbye and grabbed up his boots and crept down the staircase in socked feet.

"Hello there boy." Faolan heard the tired and weak male voice behind him as he reached for the knob of the front door. He turned to see a short squat man in scrubs eyeing him wearily.

"Sir." Faolan answered back, raising to his full height to communicate that he wasn't going to show shame for leaving his daughter's room. He saw the man sigh and rub his face with his pudgy little hands and Faolan almost felt pity for him. "Sir, I am sorry to be prowling around your home at such an early hour, but I have to get to work, otherwise I would have stayed and introduced myself better. My name is Faolan Haven."

"Adelphus' boy?" the man perked from his dismal disappointment to now scrutinize the large man in front of him. "I don't see much of resemblance, aside from height and build I guess. But anyway, he is a good man, I see him often at the hospital." Adelphus must have gotten a contract for the surveying and landscape of the hospital, Faolan thought to himself.

"Yes, well, nice to meet you." Faolan swung the door open and closed it quickly behind him and leaned over to yank his boots on allowing his jeans to stay tucked carelessly in them as he dug through his pocket for his keys.

He froze on the porch, if he hadn't been mentally preoccupied he would have picked up the sweet yet nauseating scent of the undead instantly. His head snapped up and he met its eyes from across the lawn.

-o-

He would have to go to ground any minute he knew, the sun was about to make its début and although miserable, Gabriel wasn't yet ready to meet his final death. He turned to head to the cemetery when he heard voices near the front door, and he stopped. The curiosity of the tormented never has good intentions, he thought to himself with a bitter grin, and he glided eerily to the sidewalk across the lawn from the front porch.

The werewolf left the house, and rage filled Gabriel. If he'd known that was what was inside he would have flung the door open and put the filthy animal down. He bared his fangs as he watched the dog put on his boots. Then he noticed Gabriel.

They stared at one another for what could have been an eternity, trying to gauge and size up the other one. It would have been an easy fight, due to Gabriel's age and strength, and the fact that this one was alone, but the sun was coming soon so he knew if there were going to be any actions made it needed to happen in the next second.

-o-

Faolan saw the changing of the sky, and knew the sun was rising, he knew that if he could manage to evade the demon for a few minutes he would have the upper hand. He allowed for the change to crack his spine and roll the muscles in his shoulders. He could smack himself for putting on his shoes as his claws began to grow, straining the old worn leather. His jaw slacked and then tightened as his teeth grew and his face elongated. He could hear the beating of paws hitting packed dirt in his mind, and he sent every mental signal to his already changed brethren he could muster.

He felt the alarm register in the other mind, and he smiled in triumph, knowing aid was on the way.

-o-

Gabriel watched the man make a change, packing on more muscle and adding sharp claws and teeth to his natural arson of weaponry. Gabriel let his fangs unsheathe to their full potential and his feet left the ground. He was a fraction of a second from launching himself onto the animal, when he heard company in the crop of trees that separated Eve's home from the neighbors. He knew he was out manned and the sun was going to rise, he sighed audibly and shot himself into the atmosphere, disappearing on the wind as he did so.

"Stay away from her dog, I know you are looking for me now."

-o-

Faolan watched the dead thing leave, and regret stung at him when he realized he'd missed the perfect opportunity to bring him down. He cracked back to his human form and stretched his tense muscles as his brother emerged from the outcrop of trees.

Bertolf walked over to the passenger side of Mustang and dropped into the seat naked and dirty. "Well, here's hoping no one wakes up early in this neighborhood."

"Shut the fuck up." Faolan growled in anger as the engine roared to life and he peeled down the street.

-o-

Eve looked at her bedside clock and saw it glared an angry 11:00am at her. She couldn't understand why she was up this early and groaned as she held her spinning head and sat up. She dropped her feet over the bed and was suddenly aware she was alone, she shuddered at alcohol infused memories and knew she needed to get to the bathroom. She saw a man's tank top crammed in the corner between the mattress and the wall and tugged it out and slipped it on. He seemed to have left that along with the number on her mirror. She almost gagged at her own stupidity as she realized she hadn't known his number or his last name but could draw his penis from memory. She was feeling even more classy as she stumbled to the upstairs bathroom and puked her hangover into the sink.

After she was done getting sick she took a shower and made herself a cup of hot tea. She took the mug and started to make her way back to bed when she saw a post it on the freezer door written by her Father. "We need to talk." she rubbed her eyes in aggravation when she realized her Father must have run into Faolan at some point in the night. There was no point on dwelling on the fact and she just made her way back to bed.

She flopped from side to side restlessly and knew she was never going to get back to sleep, she picked up her cell phone from its vantage point by her clock and punched in the number that was smeared on her mirror.

-o-

Faolan and Bertolf got to the den as the sun rose and Faolan nearly kicked the door in his anger. Bertolf walked into his room to pull on some shorts as Faolan threw the other doors open down the hall and awoke the other boys. He saw Adelphus come from the backyard holding a coffee cup, a quizzical look on his face. When he noted Faolan's anger the question diminished quickly.

"What's going on? Did you see it?"

"Yes, let me address the pack as a whole, its serious news." Faolan ushered the half sleeping wolves into the large Den.

Bertolf took a defensive stance by the door, his arms folded and a look of seriousness plastered on his face, and Faolan stood in front of the large cherry entertainment center, pacing slightly. Zeff, and Ulric looked red eyed and exhausted as they plopped in lazy heaps on the large leather couch directly in front of Faolan. Adelphus took a seat with his mug in the overstuffed matching leather chair near the glass doors Bertolf was standing in front of. Ingolfr was the last to enter the room, drying his long white blond hair with a hand towel, donning loose track pants and a scowl over having his shower interrupted. He stood behind the couch Zeff and Ulric were lounging in, squeezing the water from his thick locks.

"Okay, now that we are all together, me and Bertolf spotted the Vampire."

Shock and tension vibrated among all the wolves. Zeff and Ulric were upright and alert, having snapped quickly from their sleep induced stupor. Ingolfr quit drying his hair in annoyance and looked almost excited.

"Did you confront him?" Zeff asked, eager for details.

"No, I was unable to. I saw him right before dawn, outside the home of our lead. I didn't notice his closeness instantly and when I saw him he already had seen me and was producing fang, which leads me to believe he watches the house." Faolan explained.

"Wait, you were fucking our lead last night?" Ulric said, changing the subject to the annoyance of everyone else.

"How the-" Faolan began but Ulric cut him off.

"Ingolfr was in pelt last night and got a boner, we figured you were fucking one of the lone bitches in town and that's why you were able to be in pelt, or half way."

"Not important Ulric, and Ingolfr, please refrain from telling Ulric anything about sex. It fogs his tiny brain." Adelphus said in all seriousness, and Zeff feigned coughing to cover up his chuckle. Ulric sat back and crossed his arms over his chest peevishly.

"Yes, Father." Ingolfr responded in his heavy accent and with a toothy grin.

"Right, well, yes I spent the night with the girl. I took her out to smell her closely and she doesn't seem to have been officially marked my the demon, because I smell no traces of it in her blood or skin. Which she may have had him in the past but if it did happen it has been months. Taking the sketch I saw in her room and now knowing what he looks like I have no doubt she'd seen him and knows what he is, but I don't think she is involved with him any longer. However, it obviously still pines for her if the thing is watching her house. Which means the demon knows we are hunting him. Or now after this morning he knows I know he is there and that I am part of a pack, he left when he saw Bertolf in the trees."

"Do you think now that he knows we have seen him he will keep stalking her?" asked Zeff.

Faolan thought about it for a quick moment. "Yes, I think he will. He obviously hasn't had any sort of physical connection with her either ever or in a long time, and yet she knows him. I have a feeling he may either harbor some kind of fanatical love for her or perhaps he takes a thrill in the stalk. I do think that means our lead is in mortal danger."

"They cannot love." Ingolfr scoffed.

"Anything can love, it is the intention behind that love that is either pure or dangerous. You can love something to death, that may be evil but it doesn't mean you didn't love." Adelphus said. "Anyway, I think we should keep running the stalk on her. Right now this human is the only thing we have that links us to the demon and makes our search easier. I think that his apparent hostility means the vampire will keep close to our human to keep his eye on her. So, now that Faolan has an in with the girl," Ulric, Zeff, and Ingolfr snickered at the word choice. "It offers a simple alibi for proximity, however whenever Faolan is with her I want two of you in the area so he can call you when the vampire shows up. Remember, when we spot him be cautious not to change in front of her or any other humans. The last thing we need is to kill the humans for them seeing us, when our entire mission is to protect the lives of humans." Adelphus stood and walked into his office shutting the door behind him, thus ending the meeting.

"You're an asshole Faolan." Ulric said as he got up from his seat and scratched himself nonchalantly.

"How so, Ulric?" Faolan asked uninterested.

"If you shared with everyone else here that fucking her to get close to her was an option one of us would have jumped on that shit like, three weeks ago, but no. Instead you had to brood on that for a month and let the rest of us bore ourselves to death in fucking classes."

Zeff clasped Faolan on his shoulder following him into the kitchen. "He sort of has a point there Beta Boy."

"I didn't really think of it as an option. It sort of just became one, and we didn't have sex." Faolan opened the fridge and took out a hotdog and ate it cold in two bites while he rummaged around for more food.

"Yes you did, I felt it." Ingolfr walked in and over to the coffee pot pouring himself a mug.

"Dude, pour me some too." Ulric chimed in motioning "gimme" with his hands like a two year old.

"I didn't have sex, sorry." Faolan smirked and then chugged from the milk carton.

"No I mean, like I really felt it. Thank you by the way. It is not often I find myself in a field with an instant climax. It was like masturbation without the work." Ingolfr snickered and drank his coffee leaning gracefully against the counter.

"Well, hopefully you were alone, and no I am not saying she didn't get me off I am just saying that didn't happen through sex." Faolan added and shrugged.

"Hey Golfy, don't you know how I take my coffee? I am mildly insulted you didn't gay this up for me. You should know me broski." Ulric held his hand over his heart looking wounded as he took the sugar bowl and dumped its entire contents into the mug of black coffee. Ingolfr made a disgusted face.

"Virgin, huh?" Zeff offered at his comfortable perch in the breakfast nook. "muffins are in the pantry by the way. Hand the box here." Faolan grabbed the blueberry muffin box and sat at the table with Zeff, followed by Ulric, Ingolfr kept his distance by the coffee pot.

"Yes. How did you guess?" Faolan smirked.

"She smelt like one. I sit behind her in Art History, she has never smelt of man. Well, I guess until now." He punched Faolan playfully on the shoulder and downed a muffin at record speed.

Ulric finished his coffee and stood up. "I'm going back to bed, this shit never works." he left the mug on the table and walked to his room.

"Well, I don't want to hear him snoring so I am going for a run, anyone want to flank me?" Zeff asked pulling his shirt over his head and tossed it behind him as he stood.

"I will brother." Ingolfr replied with his Finnish accent as he put his coffee mug in the sink and eyed Zeff's tossed clothing with annoyance. "I felt like rabbit for breakfast any how." he added with a sharp and frightful grin, his lavender eyes taking on a red hue for a flicker of an instant.

"Well, let's go get you some breakfast bud." Zeff made his way to the back door and Ingolfr followed.

Faolan stood and grabbed Zeff's New Orleans Saints t-shirt from off the floor and made his way back to his and Bertolf's shared room. He tossed the shirt in Zeff's room on his way down the hall and heard Bertolf singing in the shower and he banged on the door as he passed, in an attempt to shut up the god awful sound. He landed on his bed and fell into a deep sleep almost instantly. Instead of having dreams of Eve naked and writhing underneath him , he had fitful nightmares about his racial enemy getting away from him.

-o-

Faolan awoke with a start, and realized that it was the ringing of his cell phone next to his bed. He answered it without looking to see who it was. "Hello?" he rumbled into the phone, sounding half asleep.

"Did I wake you? I'm sorry, I can call later. If you want."

Eve. It was Eve, he tried not to notice the twinge in his loins at the sound of her voice.

"No, its okay, I am sure I should be up anyhow. What is going on?"

"Nothing much, feel awful. Hangover, you know." she laughed. He didn't. "I actually wanted to know if you ran into my Dad as you were leaving my house?"

"Uh, yeah, I actually forgot about that. But yeah I did, he pretty pissed about seeing me at 6am?" Faolan rolled onto his back and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

"I don't know, he left a note in the kitchen leading me to think you may have run into him. Well, that sucks. I have no clue how I am going to explain that without it getting awkward." she sounded nervous.

"Just say we are friends from school and that we went to a concert and I got trashed and you drove my car back to your place so I could sleep it off. I mean, I don't know how you feel about lying to your Dad but I would think it better than telling him what really happened."

Eve could hear the smile in his voice at the last bit of that. "Yeah, that actually might work. Better than the truth in this case anyway." she laughed.

"Hey, I don't know if you will feel up to it later, but would you want to do something?" Faolan asked.

"Yeah, I would like that." she smiled. "I guess call me with the when and where later."

"Will do, Babe." he hung up and rolled back over to his belly with a groan.

"Oh yeah, Baby smooch smooch, oh yeah!" Ulric made sex noises by the door of Faolan's bedroom. He didn't honor the display with a response but instead chucked a pillow at top speed in his direction.

Faolan found himself smiling into his remaining pillow as he drifted back to sleep, this time much less fitful, and much more hot.


End file.
